New Delhi, June 14 -- PIETERMARITZBURG - With about 10 kilometres left in the 99th Comrades Marathon, George Kusche was in trouble. His stomach had turned on him - not for the first time in an ultramarathon, not even for the first time in this race - and the question was no longer whether he could run fast. The question was whether he could keep moving at all.

He kept moving. He won.

Kusche, a 27-year-old Pretoria-based data scientist running only his second Comrades, crossed the finish line at Hollywoodbets Scottsville Racecourse on Sunday morning in 5 hours, 15 minutes and 56 seconds - obliterating the men's Up Run record of 5:24:49 that Russian Leonid Shvetsov had held since 2008. In the women's race, Gerda Steyn did what she has don...