Gerda Steyn
Gerda Steyn is a South African marathon and ultramarathon athlete. She set the down-run record for the 90 km Comrades Marathon in 2023 with a mark of 5:44:54, becoming the fourth woman under 6 hours for that race. She also holds the record for the 56 km Two Oceans Marathon and has won that event 6 consecutive times, starting in 2018.
On 11 April 2021, she became the SA marathon record holder with a time of 2:25:28 at the Xiamen Tuscany Camp Elite Marathon in Siena, Italy. She then broke her own record at the 2023 Valencia marathon, setting a time of 2:24:03.
Early life
Her parents are Pieter and Trudie Steyn. Gerda grew up on a farm in the Bothaville area and completed her schooling in 2008 at the Bothaville High School. Afterwards, she qualified as a quantity surveyor from the University of the Free State. She has a sister and a brother.Career
In 2014 she went to work in Dubai and joined a running club, where she discovered her talent for running. After completing her first Comrades in 2015, she met 1991 winner Nick Bester who became her coach.Her first major career victory was in the 2018 Two Oceans Marathon, in a time of 3:39:32.
She won the 2019 Comrades Marathon in a record time of 5 hours, 58 minutes, and 53 seconds, becoming the first woman to complete the uprun in under six hours.
She also won the 2019 Two Oceans Marathon in a time of 3:31:28. She won it for the fifth time in a row in 2024 and broke her course record with a time of 3:26:54.
She competed in the Athletics at the [2020 Summer Olympics – Women's marathon|women's marathon] at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Her best time for a standard marathon is the SA record of 2:25:28, achieved in 2021 at the 2021 IAAF Xiamen Tuscany Camp Elite Marathon in Siena, Italy, breaking the previous 25-year-old SA record by more than a minute.
At the 2023 Valencia Marathon, Steyn finished in 11th running a time of 2:24:03 becoming the South African national record holder for the event.