Comrades Marathon 2026 — Building Blocks Creative Framework

Building Blocks

THE FINISHED HOUR

The creative architecture of a 13.5-hour live broadcast. Every element weighted by its impact on what the viewer actually experiences.

"If you're obsessed with how it looks in the Finished Hour, you're not going to spend too long talking about how many drones we have. Drones are 0.3% of the Finished Hour. Commentary is 70%. Put your energy where it matters."

Building Blocks — Finished Hour Allocation

Building Block	Finished Hour	Role
The Run	55%	The primary block. The competitive race (men's & women's), the notables, and the backpackers. The soul of the show.
Commentary (overlay)	70%	An overlay across the entire show. Voice, insight, storytelling, statistics. The most important creative investment.
Graphics & Data	15%	GPS tracking, ghosting data, split times, 3D course mapping. Done brilliantly = unbelievable storytelling.
History	10%	A century of stories, largely untold. Archive footage, legendary moments, the Fordyce Tap, great rivalries.
In-Race Stories	5%	Live storytelling from the road. Runners with cameras. Course reporters. Real, raw, in the moment.
Back Stories	5%	Pre-produced runner profiles. When they appear live, you already know their name. You already care.
Packaged Inserts	5%	140 pre-produced pieces: history, thematics, traditions, runner stories, geography.
Studio	5%	Art-directed, purposeful. Not the old 80% model. Studio must earn its place.

The Run

55% OF FINISHED HOUR

The primary block. The competitive race, the notables, the backpackers, and the supporters. The soul of the show.

THE RACE

The competitive front of pack. Men's and women's battles for the win. Elite splits, tactical moves.

THE NOTABLES

Celebrities, public figures, green number runners, someone running their 51st Comrades.

THE BACKPACKERS

The everyday runners. The middle and back of the pack. The soul of the race.

THE SUPPORTERS

Families at the roadside. The child with a sign. The partner at the finish. The in-race human stories.

Commentary

70% OVERLAY

An overlay across the entire show. Voice, insight, storytelling, statistics. The most important creative investment.

The Voice of the Broadcast

Commentary is not describing what you see. It is telling you what to feel, what to understand, and why it matters. It runs across every building block. It IS the broadcast.

The single largest creative investment in the production. It overlays everything — The Run, the inserts, the studio segments. When commentary is right, every other block is elevated. When it is wrong, nothing else matters.

Graphics & Data

15%

GPS tracking, ghosting data, split times, 3D course mapping. Done brilliantly = unbelievable storytelling.

When data becomes story. Real-time GPS tracking of top 50 athletes, ghosting overlays comparing current pace to course records, split time analysis, 3D course mapping with elevation profiles. The graphics package transforms raw race data into narrative tension.

History

10%

A century of stories, largely untold. Archive footage, legendary moments, the Fordyce Tap, great rivalries.

The broadcast's time machine. 100 years of Comrades stories woven into the live race. When the front-runners hit Fields Hill, the viewer sees Fordyce and de la Motte in 1983. When the gun fires at 12 hours, they understand a century of heartbreak. History is not decoration — it is the weight that makes the present race meaningful.

Full history insert library detailed below in Packaged Inserts section.

In-Race Stories

Live storytelling from the road. Runners with cameras. Course reporters. Real, raw, in the moment.

The unscripted moments. Course reporters embedded at key points along the route. Runners carrying their own cameras. The rawness of live storytelling — no script, no second take. When a runner stops to help a stranger, when a crowd erupts for someone they've never met, when the back-of-pack runners enter Pietermaritzburg with minutes to spare. This is where the broadcast breathes.

Back Stories

Pre-produced runner profiles. When they appear live, you already know their name. You already care.

The bridge between pre-production and live broadcast. Filmed weeks before race day — at home, on training routes, with families. When these runners appear on the live feed, the viewer already has a relationship. They know the name, the reason, the stakes. Back stories turn 20,000 anonymous runners into people you are invested in.

Packaged Inserts

5% — 340+ PIECES

140 pre-produced pieces covering history, thematics, traditions, runner stories, and geography. The emotional architecture of the broadcast.

The full Packaged Inserts creative framework is detailed below — editorial principles, content libraries, sample scripts, trigger maps, and pre-production timelines.

PACKAGED INSERTS — DETAILED CREATIVE FRAMEWORK

Studio

Art-directed, purposeful. Not the old 80% model. Studio must earn its place.

The studio is no longer the centre of the broadcast. It is a punctuation mark. Used for expert analysis during key race moments, for medal cut-off countdowns, for post-race interviews. Every studio segment must have a reason to exist. If the director can achieve the same thing with a course reporter and a graphic, the studio is not needed.

Overview & Principles

EDITORIAL FOUNDATION

Establish the editorial rules that govern all inserts across all categories.

What Packaged Inserts Are

Pre-produced, self-contained content pieces that live inside the live 13.5-hour race day broadcast. Not filler. Not interruptions. The emotional architecture of the broadcast — the moments that make a viewer put their phone down and feel something. They do what the live camera cannot: travel back in time, get inside a runner's head the night before, explain why a hill broke a record, make a child's face looking into camera tell the whole story of what this race means.

Duration Table

Type	Duration	Use Case
Micro	10–30 sec	Shout-outs, quick facts, single image with VO
Short	30–90 sec	Tradition explainers, geography snapshots, history moments
Standard	90–180 sec	Runner stories, thematic pieces, deep history
Feature	3–5 min	Exceptional stories only. Rare. Must earn its length.

The Pixar Principle

"We admire people not for what they accomplish, but for what they overcome."

Find the obstacle. Find the doubt. Find the moment of almost. Then — and only then — show us the crossing.

History is not dates and records. It is human beings under pressure. Geography is not hills and distances. It is the places where people's bodies and minds negotiated with each other. Traditions are not rules. They are rituals that carry meaning. Every insert must be rooted in a human being doing something hard.

The Parallel Storytelling Device

The most powerful use of history and geography inserts is the Trigger Map — a pre-planned editorial tool that links live race moments to moments from the past. As the broadcast approaches a known location — a hill, a town, a cut-off time — the director pulls the corresponding insert. The present race and the historical moment collapse into one. The viewer feels the weight of all the races ever run on this road. Every insert that can be paired with a live trigger point must be tagged in pre-production.

Production Tone Principles

Narration is the primary voice. Warm, knowledgeable. Not a sports anchor. Not a documentary cliche.
Music decided per insert. No blanket musical rule. Some inserts carry better in silence.
Archival material: handle with reverence. Do not overlay with heavy graphics. Let old footage breathe.
Modern inserts should feel cinematic. Wide lenses on hills. Close on faces. Slow motion used sparingly.
If an insert makes the edit team go quiet, it is working. If it provokes nothing, it is not ready.

Soul Manifesto Reference

Reference the manifesto: "This broadcast is not sports coverage — it is a 14-hour act of witness." Link to the ten founding principles from the soul manifesto. Key values to embed:

The North Star: Make viewers feel what participants experience
South Africa At Its Purest: The road is the great equaliser
The Soul of One Thousand: Balance massive scale with intimate storytelling
Three Emotional Pillars: Heroism, Pride, Hope, Future
Our Obligation: Stories shape what societies believe possible

Full manifesto: tandw.dev/comrades-2026/soul-manifesto

Master Quantity Table

Category	Target	Notes
History	100	Largest library — parallels live race events across the full route
Thematic	30	Heroism, Pride, Future & Hope — emotional anchors of the broadcast
Traditions	25	Top 20 Comrades traditions explained and brought to life
Runner Stories	75	Elite to back-of-pack, diverse, emotionally variable
Geography	15	Five great hills + key course sections
Shout-Outs	Open	UGC-style, 10–20 seconds, families at home and at the finish

History Inserts

100 INSERTS

Make the viewer feel that the race they are watching is one chapter in a 100-year story — and that the road the runners are on right now has felt this before.

Key Research Areas

Moment	Year	Insert Angle
The First Race — Vic Clapham's founding vision	1921
34 starters, 16 finishers. A tribute to fallen soldiers. The country had no idea what they'd started.
Hardy Ballington — The Interrupted Dynasty	1933–1950
Won in 1933, 1934, then World War II took 14 years. What does a runner do with a 14-year gap?
Wally Hayward — Longevity as Resistance	1952–1988
First win at age 27. Final win at age 45. 36-year career. The story of time refused.
Frances Hayward — Running Before Permission	1958
Women unofficially ran years before the official category. The fight to be allowed to suffer equally.
Official Women's Category Introduced	1975
The arrival of the modern era. What changed and what didn't.
Bruce Fordyce — First Win	1981
Begins 9 victories in 10 years. What made him different was not fitness — it was race intelligence.
The Fields Hill Moment — Fordyce vs de la Motte	1983
The race turned on a hill. Research split times, the tactical decision, the aftermath.
Frith van der Merwe — The Record	1988
Women's up-run record of 5:54:43. Stood 28 years. A performance so far ahead of its time it became mythological.
The Big Five Medals Introduced	2000
How the medal system became the emotional backbone of the race.
The 100th Running — No Spectators	2021
COVID protocols. A race run in a bubble. The year Comrades ran anyway.
Elena Nurgalieva — Twin Dynasty	2000s
Russian twin who won 8 times. The story of two sisters running the same race.
Bongmusa Mthembu — The Modern Standard-Bearer	2010s–present
Multiple South African winner. The pride and the pressure.
The Cutoff Gun — 106 Years of Heartbreak	Ongoing
The most dramatic moment in broadcasting. The official who must enforce it. The cruelty and the necessity of the rule.

The Trigger Map — Director's Cue Sheet

Race Trigger Point	Approx Time (SAST)	History Insert Cue	Insert Duration
Start gun — Durban	05:30	1921 — The First Race	90 sec
Cowies Hill (km 17–20)	06:45	Fordyce: The Cowies Hill strategy — the trap that destroys races before they start	60 sec
Fields Hill (km 24–26)	07:15	1983 — Fordyce vs de la Motte. The race turned on this hill.	2 min
Hillcrest (km 33)	07:45	Hardy Ballington — The interrupted dynasty	90 sec
Botha's Hill (km 38)	08:00	Wally Hayward — Still running at 45	2 min
Drummond (km 46)	08:30	Frith van der Merwe — The record that stood 28 years	2 min
Inchanga (km 55)	09:00	Frances Hayward — Running before permission	90 sec
Polly Shortts (km 72)	10:30	Fordyce — The Polly Shortts surge	90 sec
Harrison Flats (km 78)	11:00	Elena Nurgalieva — The twins	2 min
12-hour gun	18:00	The cutoff — the history of the gun	60 sec

Sample Scripts

HISTORY INSERT 001 — "THE FIRST RACE" (90 seconds) [ARCHIVAL PHOTOGRAPHS — DURBAN 1921. SEPIA. MEN IN LONG SHORTS.] NARRATOR (V/O): It was 1921. The war had been over for three years, but Vic Clapham couldn't stop thinking about the men who hadn't come home. He wanted to honour them. Not with a statue. Not with a speech. With a run. [CUT TO: Archival map of the route. Then cut to modern runners on the same road.] Thirty-four men lined up in Pietermaritzburg that morning. Only sixteen finished. Nobody called them heroes that day. They had no idea what they'd started. [CUT TO: Wide shot of 2026 field at the start line. 20,000 runners.] [MUSIC SWELLS — HOLD ON FACES IN THE CROWD]

HISTORY INSERT 017 — "FIELDS HILL, 1983" (2 minutes) [TRIGGER: Live race passes Fields Hill. 70km mark. Director cues insert.] [ARCHIVAL RACE FOOTAGE 1983 — INTERCUT WITH PRESENT-DAY FIELDS HILL] NARRATOR (V/O): It was on this hill. Right here. Bruce Fordyce had been running with Bob de la Motte for most of the race. Side by side. Neither man willing to blink. [SLOW MOTION ARCHIVE — RUNNERS ON HILL] Then Fordyce moved. Not a surge. A decision. A quiet, surgical acceleration that de la Motte could not answer. By the time they cleared Fields Hill, the race was over. De la Motte just didn't know it yet. [CUT TO: Fordyce interview — archive or re-interview for 2026] NARRATOR (V/O): Every runner who climbs Fields Hill today climbs it in his shadow. And somewhere in the back of their minds, they're all wondering the same thing: "Is this where I make my move?"

Thematic Inserts

30 INSERTS

Answer the question — why does any of this matter? These are the broadcast's emotional compass.

The Three Themes

Heroism

10 inserts

Not stories about winning. Stories about the decision to not stop. The negotiation between body and will. The moment at km 75 when everything says stop — and the answer is yes anyway. Do not make these saccharine. The heroism in Comrades is unglamorous. It is a woman throwing up at the roadside and getting back up. Dignity in its most stripped-down form. Find characters. Find the moment of almost. Find the yes.

Pride

10 inserts

The Comrades Marathon is the only event in the country where all of South Africa genuinely seems to be in the same place. Not a vague montage of rainbow nation imagery. Specific. Concrete. Diverse. The family from Soweto whose son is running his first Comrades. The Afrikaner farmer from the Karoo who has run every year since 1987. The Zulu runner who runs in traditional dress. The Indian family who sets up the same support table at the same corner every single year. The sign in isiZulu that, when translated, is devastating in its love.

Future & Hope

10 inserts

These inserts look forward. The teenagers watching the race and imagining themselves in it. The 8-year-old at the finish line who will run this race in 20 years. The disabled athlete who changed the definition of finishing. The coach who trains kids in a township with no track and no shoes and a starting line and a belief.

Best-in-Class References

Masters Tournament — "A Tradition Unlike Any Other" CBS promos

Augusta creates 60-second inserts that distil an entire culture into one sensory moment. No interviews. Music and image only. Study the pacing.

Search: "Masters Tournament tradition unlike any other CBS promo"

NHL — "History Will Be Made" campaign (2011)

Pure drama. Archive footage. Single VO line per image. The weight of history made to feel present.

Search: "NHL History Will Be Made 2011 campaign"

London Marathon — "What It Takes" documentary series

Short-form pieces (2–3 min) on amateur runners. Emotional, specific, unpolished. The opposite of corporate sport.

Search: "London Marathon What It Takes documentary"

UTMB — Race Stories series (2023 broadcast)

The UTMB broadcast inserts runner backstories into live coverage. The editorial rhythm is a direct model for Comrades.

Search: "UTMB race stories broadcast 2023"

Sample Script

THEMATIC INSERT — PRIDE: "THE SIGN" (45 seconds) [SHOT: A handmade cardboard sign held by an elderly Zulu woman at the roadside. Kilometre 67.] We cannot read what it says. [RUNNERS PASS. SHE IS SHOUTING. HER FACE IS JOY.] NARRATOR (V/O): We asked her what the sign said. [CUT TO: Interview. She speaks in isiZulu. Subtitles appear.] WOMAN (in isiZulu, subtitled): "My son is somewhere out there on that road. I told him I would be here. I have been here every year for eleven years. The sign says: I see you. Keep going. I love you." [BACK TO: Wide shot. Runners continue past her. She is still shouting. The sign is still up. She is not tired.]

Tradition Inserts

25 INSERTS

Teach the uninitiated and reward the faithful with recognition. Every loyal Comrades follower should feel seen when these run.

The Top 20 Traditions

#	Tradition	Insert Brief
1	The cock crow at the start
Explain the origin. Why a cock? Where does the call come from? Find the person responsible.
2	Chariots of Fire — the start anthem
The music that has played at every start. Why this piece? The Pavlovian response of runners who have heard it before.
3	The Big Five medals (Gold, Wally Hayward, Silver, Bill Rowan, Bronze)
The medal hierarchy. What each one means to the people who earn them.
4	The Vic Clapham medal (finisher's medal)
Named after the founder. Given to every single finisher. No time distinction. Just: you finished.
5	The cutoff gun at 12 hours
The most dramatic broadcast moment. The official who must enforce it. The cruelty and necessity of the rule.
6	The green number — 10 finishes
7	The black number — first-time finisher
The most emotional moment. The runner sees the colour of their number for the first time as they're nearing the finish.
8	The Fordyce Tap
A gesture of respect between runners on the road. The tap on the shoulder. What it means.
9	The 12-hour bell
The sound that marks the final hour. Every runner knows it. The acceleration you hear.
10	Support point culture
The food, the families, the coordination. How an entire community mobilizes to support strangers.
11	Water stations and hydration
The history of Comrades logistics. How hydration culture has evolved.
12	The finish-line hug
Every runner receives it. The official finisher's greeting. The moment of arrival.
13	The blanket and the chair
Post-race recovery ritual. The moment when a runner sits down and understands what they've just done.
14	The Robert Mtshali Award
For the first South African finisher. The history and significance of this distinction.
15	The night-before pasta dinner
The carbo-loading culture. The gatherings. The nerves. What people say to each other.
16	Supporters' tables at specific corners
The family tradition of the same table, same corner, every year. How communities form around support points.
17	The timing chip and the obsession with splits
The data culture. Why Comrades runners study their splits like investment portfolios.
18	Two Oceans as preparation — the unwritten rule
If you can't finish Two Oceans, you're not ready for Comrades. The unwritten law and what it means.
19	The Comrades tattoo culture
Runners who ink their finishes. The finisher's medal as permanent body art.
20	Post-race recovery area
The chaos of the finish. The ice baths. The sleeping on the grass. The phone calls. The faces.

Best-in-Class References

Augusta National — "Traditions" series

30–90 second inserts. One tradition. One camera. One voice. No graphics. No text. Pure image and voice. This is the benchmark.

Six Nations — "History of the Calcutta Cup"

How to give a single object meaning through story in under 2 minutes.

Boston Marathon — "The Scream Tunnel"

A tradition inside the race (Wellesley students). How specificity makes a tradition universal.

Sample Script

TRADITION INSERT — "THE GREEN NUMBER" (90 seconds) [SHOT: A runner's race number. It is green. Close. Then pull back.] We cannot read what it says. [RUNNERS PASS. SHE IS SHOUTING. HER FACE IS JOY.] NARRATOR (V/O): Every runner at Comrades wears a white number. Except some of them. [CUT TO: Runner at the start. Green number. Other runners notice. A nod. A touch on the shoulder.] NARRATOR (V/O): The green number means ten. Ten times across this finish line. Ten times the cock crowed and your legs answered. Ten years — or twenty — or thirty — of this particular decision. [CUT TO: Interview — runner on his 10th finish.] RUNNER: "The first time I finished, I cried like a child. Now? I still cry. But now I know why." [HOLD ON GREEN NUMBER IN MOTION — RUNNERS AROUND HIM — WIDE]

Runner Stories

75 INSERTS

The heart of the broadcast. The reason a viewer who has never run will find themselves crying at 11am watching strangers climb a hill.

Story Categories

Category	Description	Target
Elite Race Stories	Telete Dejane vs Pit Visma. The rivalry. The record possibilities. Pre-race tactical framing.	10
Elite Human Stories	Who are the elites off the course? Their training, their home, what they do between races.	10
Green Number Stories	Runners achieving their 10th finish. The journey. The first time vs the tenth. The family at the line.	10
First-Timers	The terror and wonder of a first Comrades. The training, the doubt, the day.	8
Bus Drivers	The unofficial pacers who carry hundreds of people to their medals. The unsung.	5
Back-of-Pack	Racing not for medals but against the gun. The final hour.	8
Comeback Stories	DNF'd, got injured, or had something go wrong — and came back.	8
Funny & Absurd	The runner who dresses as a rhino. The man running with his daughter on his back for 1km. The absurdity only a 90km race produces.	6
Supporter Stories	The families and communities who make the race happen from the roadside.	10

Key 2026 Story Subjects — Research Brief

Telete Dejane (Ethiopia)

Pre-race profile. The record she is chasing. Her preparation. What Comrades means to her. Film in training environment if access can be secured.

Pit Visma (confirm 2026 entry)

If competing: the rivalry narrative. A South African favourite against the international field. Head-to-head story.

Bongmusa Mthembu

The defending champion or perennial contender. His relationship with the race over time. What this year means to him.

"Dawsey" (confirmed insert — production to coordinate)

Getting his 10th finish. Green number. His kids at the line. This is a CONFIRMED insert. Source the footage, get family permissions, film pre-race. Tag to race bib for live shout-out match-up.

Story Finding Protocol

Identify candidates through CMA entry data, running clubs, social media, and CMA contacts (Carel and Gareth — primary story identification contacts).
Pre-interview all candidates (30 minutes, recorded). Not every candidate yields an insert.
Film selected subjects in their natural environment: home, training route, work, family.
The insert must feel found, not manufactured. If it feels like a corporate inspiration video, it is wrong.

Sample Script

RUNNER STORY — "THE BUS DRIVER" (2 minutes) [PRE-PRODUCED. FILMED MARCH/APRIL 2026.] [OPENING: A man tying his laces. A green number. His hands are those of someone who has done this many times.] NARRATOR (V/O): Sipho Nkosi has never won Comrades. He's never tried. [CUT TO: Interview — Sipho, at home, relaxed.] SIPHO: "I finished my first Comrades in 2008. Just made it. Five minutes before the gun. I remember thinking: I never want to feel like that again. So the next year, I ran slower. And I finished with 40 minutes to spare. Now I do it on purpose. I slow down so others don't." [CUT TO: Race footage — a group of 30 runners, Sipho at the front. He is talking. They are listening. They are all matching his pace exactly.] NARRATOR (V/O): Today, Sipho is carrying 28 people. Some of them are running their first Comrades. Some of them don't know yet that they're going to make it. Sipho knows. [WIDE SHOT — THE GROUP ON THE ROAD. SIPHO AT FRONT. SUNRISE.]

Geography Inserts

15 INSERTS

Explain what a place does to a body and a mind. Make the viewer feel the road before the runners arrive on it.

The Five Great Hills

Hill	Location (up run)	What It Does	Insert Angle
Cowies Hill	km 17–20	Early test. Runners arrive full of energy and go too hard. The hill that destroys races before they have started.	The trap. Why the fastest runners make their biggest mistake here.
Fields Hill	km 24–26	Steep ascent (up run). Multiple switchbacks. Technically demanding. Historic race moments.	The hill as history. What this hill has witnessed. The 1983 moment.
Botha's Hill	km 37–40	Long, grinding climb. The loneliness of this hill. The point where the body starts asking questions.	The mental wall. The conversation that happens inside a runner's head on Botha's Hill.
Inchanga / Drummond	km 46–55	Halfway territory. Psychological turning point. The view. The descent.	Halfway: the mathematics of hope and the danger of the calculation.
Polly Shortts	km 72–75	Last great climb. 18km from the finish. The race is made or broken here. The iconic moment.	The decisive hill. Where the race is won and lost. Fordyce. History. The surge.

Additional Key Sections

Section	Description	Insert Angle
Harrison Flats (km 77–82)	Deceptive false flat after Polly Shortts. Runners think the hard work is done. It is not.	False hope: the geography of the almost-finished.
45th Cutting (km 82)	Famous descent. First view of Pietermaritzburg. The emotional unlock.	The moment the city appears. What that does to a runner's mind after 82km.
The Start — Durban city centre	20,000 runners. Pre-dawn. The sound of feet on tarmac.	The atmosphere insert. Before the race exists, this is what it looks like.
The Finish — Pietermaritzburg stadium	The arrival. The clock. The cut-off. The gun.	The destination. The insert that airs in the final hour.

Best-in-Class References

Tour de France — Mountain stage previews (L'Equipe / ITV)

Each major climb gets a dedicated feature. History + gradient data made human. Model for Comrades hill inserts.

Cape Epic — "The Route" series

Aerial combined with rider testimony. Terrain treated as a character.

Boston Marathon — "Heartbreak Hill" features

The most documented hill in distance running. Study how different broadcasters approach the same location.

Sample Script

GEOGRAPHY INSERT — "POLLY SHORTTS" (90 seconds) [PRE-PRODUCED. FILMED APRIL 2026.] [OPENING: Aerial drone — a long hill from above. A road that climbs without apology. No runners yet.] NARRATOR (V/O): Kilometre 72. You've been running for nine hours. Your legs have made peace with the distance. Your mind has negotiated a settlement with your body. [CUT TO: Ground level — the foot of the hill. Looking up. The road disappears into a curve above.] NARRATOR (V/O): And then Polly Shortts. [PAUSE. HOLD ON THE HILL.] This hill has 3 kilometres of climb. It rises 137 metres. It has ended more Comrades dreams than any other single piece of road in the race. And it is also where Bruce Fordyce made his move in 1983. Where the race stopped being a competition and became a statement. [CUT TO: Archival Fordyce footage on Polly Shortts. Then cut back to the empty hill in 2026.] NARRATOR (V/O): In a few minutes, the leaders will arrive here. [HOLD. SILENCE.] Watch what they do.

Shout-Outs

50+ INSERTS

Connect the broadcast to the people who are not running but are completely invested in someone who is.

Production Spec

Element	Specification
Duration	10–20 seconds per shout-out
Format	Selfie-style video OR filmed by crew at support points
Collection window	Pre-race (uploaded via CMA platform) + race day (crew at key support points)
Consent	Written consent required. Minors require parental consent.
Tagging system	Each shout-out tagged to runner bib number. Director pulls by bib.
On-screen treatment	Lower-third: runner name + bib number. No heavy graphics.
Language	Accept all South African languages. Subtitle everything non-English.
Selection criteria	Emotional authenticity. If it feels coached or scripted, reject it.

Social Media Call-Out Copy

Know someone running Comrades 2026? Record a short video — 15 seconds, straight to camera — and we might play it on the broadcast on race day. Tell us who you're cheering for, what their bib number is, and what you want to say to them as they cross the line. Because on June 14, someone on that road is going to need to hear your voice. [Link to submission portal] #Comrades2026 #WeSeeThem

Pre-Production Timeline

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

Key milestones and ownership for all insert categories.

Milestone	Target Date	Owner
Insert framework approved by CMA	End April 2026	T+W + CMA
Runner story subjects identified and pre-interviewed	End April 2026	T+W
History insert scripts drafted — first 30	End April 2026	T+W
Shout-out collection campaign live	1 May 2026	T+W + CMA Social
Tradition insert scripts approved	Mid May 2026	T+W + CMA
Runner story filming complete	End May 2026	T+W
History inserts rough cuts reviewed	End May 2026	T+W
Geography inserts final cut	1 June 2026	T+W
All inserts locked and delivered for broadcast	10 June 2026	T+W
Director's Trigger Map finalised	10 June 2026	T+W Director

T+W | Comrades 2026 | Building Blocks Creative Framework | April 2026 | tandw.dev/comrades-2026