The Transformation of South Africa's Sports Scene

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South Africa began integrating domestic sports in the early 1970s in an effort to improve its relationship with the world.
This led to the inclusion of women in distance running, which had been previously prohibited.
The country's comrades were eventually cornered by the public and had to open up their race to everyone.

If you live in South Africa, you definitely know someone who runs ultra-marathons, probably lots of someones. Here, ultras are the stuff of a whole country’s new years resolutions and mid-life crises. They’re the kind of thing that a totally ordinary, not-athletic person wakes up one day and decides they’re going to do -- and then does. In one of the most economically unequal countries in the world, extreme distance running is a sport that feels like it includes everybody. And improbably, that inclusiveness happened during one of the darkest, most divided moments in South Africa’s history – during the final years of apartheid.

The Comrades