Ann Ashworth: The calm before the storm of Comrades 2025
Key topics:
2024 Comrades race hailed a success despite internal challenges
Organizer's career derailed by CMA politics, racism, and sabotage
Returns in 2025 seeking healing and closure from past turmoil
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By Ann Ashworth
Mine is a storm that has been building for almost a year. A year ago I was the Acting Race and Operations Manager of the Comrades Marathon. Together with the exceptional volunteers within the Race Organising Committee and four dedicated CMA staff, I successfully hosted the 2024 event. With the exception of the Runners Bus Service, a few 100 missing goodie bags and a scaffolding bridge behind the finish, the race went off without incident and was largely considered to be an enormous success.
It cost me nearly everything I had to host the 2024 event. Within a few weeks my professional and personal reputation was in tatters; the toxic undercurrent of racism and corruption within the CMA had been exposed; and the staff and board members who had allowed and/or encouraged the sabotage of my career and the race had been identified.
Ultimately, good was to come from my time within the CMA. Some of the rot was removed; some of the problems were addressed… but my life was largely left imploded. No one gave a damn about how much the race had cost me personally.
It’s been a very difficult year. I’ve been promised and denied the possibility of returning to the CMA many times… I was used as a pawn in political games I wanted no part of.
But here I am, back at Comrades 2025… ready to support the man that I love and an elite athlete I deeply respect and admire. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be part of the race, to spend my time along the road watching and supporting the runners who make this event what it is.
I hope this race gives me the closure I deserve. There needs to be a light after the past two very dark years.
Ann Ashworth first posted this story on Instagram. You can find it here.