Many questions will be answered on the roads of East London tomorrow morning when a couple hundred runners representing their provinces around South Africa line up along with numerous club runners in a race billed as the Hemingways Buffs Marathon incorporating the SA Marathon Championships.
Obvious questions that will be answered include the current state and standard of marathon running within South Africa, the nature of a marathon course never used before and the administration of the sport at national level.
It may well be that all three of those come out smelling of proverbial roses.
As always there will be racing throughout the age groups, but three names jump out at an observer when perusing the entries.
Gift Kelehe, winner of the 2015 Comrades Marathon, is now entered as entries close in on the 250 mark.
The other one is Gert Thys, who holds the SA Marathon record of 2:06:33, which he ran in Tokyo in February 1999. Seventeen years on he runs as a veteran and few would bet against him winning that category. A veteran of two Olympic Games and a multiple SA champion, his has been a colourful career.
Nancy Will has literally been on the national circuit for decades. Will is 63 years of age and will be running in the grandmasters race. Her 3:14 qualifier will leave the majority of runners in the club section of the race drooling.
He will not be running in provincial colours but Alan Robb, a four times winner of the Comrades Marathon and winner of the 1980 Buffs Marathon, will be running tomorrow in his famous red socks. He too is now a grandmaster and will be looking to run his 43rd Comrades in May, not having missed one since he began as a 20 year old.
A perusal of the entries received at the time of writing gives away little in respect of likely results and Olympic qualification. Many of the marathon qualifications have been run at altitude or on tough courses.
The two exceptions and those that have produced the most qualifiers are the PetroSA marathon that was run in Mossel Bay and doubled as the SA championships just five months ago and the Cape Town City Marathon which also took place last September.
The Mossel Bay race was won by Coolboy Ngamole in 2:17:26, while the first woman home was Zehara Dadu in 2:46, neither of whom appear on the entry list supplied.
It is probably safe to say that South Africa’s queen of the roads, Rene Kalmer, will win the women’s race tomorrow and of all the entrants is the most likely to be on her way to the Rio Olympics in Brazil later this year.
Lungile Gongqa of Western Province and Michael Mazibuko of Central Gauteng are the two fastest male qualifiers and both recorded their times in Cape Town.
Gongqa has also won numerous races in East London, inclusive of the fast Windmill 60:11 half marathon and appears to be the man to beat again tomorrow. He ran a sound 2:11:59 at the Cape Town Marathon.
Mazibuko ran 2:12:29 at the same race and will look to dig deeper yet in order to beat Gongqa and any other pretenders who may come along.
Both men are going to be hard pressed to run anywhere near those times again tomorrow.
Ntsindiso Mphakathi, Benedict Moeng, Raphael Segodi and Siyabonga Nkonde were all in the 2:18 bracket at the PetroSA Marathon and will be hoping that five months later they are in shape to kick on to a big one.
In the women’s event Kalmer has her sister Christine in the frame and will be hoping she is on the flight with her to Rio.
Mapaseka Makhanya from CGA ran a 2:37 in Shanghai last August and should be in the early mix, but holding on will be more difficult.
Other names to keep an eye out for are Yolande MacLean from CGA and Tanith Maxwell from Western Province.
Top talent in city aiming for Rio berth
Obvious questions that will be answered include the current state and standard of marathon running within South Africa, the nature of a marathon course never used before and the administration of the sport at national level.
It may well be that all three of those come out smelling of proverbial roses.
As always there will be racing throughout the age groups, but three names jump out at an observer when perusing the entries.
Gift Kelehe, winner of the 2015 Comrades Marathon, is now entered as entries close in on the 250 mark.
The other one is Gert Thys, who holds the SA Marathon record of 2:06:33, which he ran in Tokyo in February 1999. Seventeen years on he runs as a veteran and few would bet against him winning that category. A veteran of two Olympic Games and a multiple SA champion, his has been a colourful career.
Nancy Will has literally been on the national circuit for decades. Will is 63 years of age and will be running in the grandmasters race. Her 3:14 qualifier will leave the majority of runners in the club section of the race drooling.
He will not be running in provincial colours but Alan Robb, a four times winner of the Comrades Marathon and winner of the 1980 Buffs Marathon, will be running tomorrow in his famous red socks. He too is now a grandmaster and will be looking to run his 43rd Comrades in May, not having missed one since he began as a 20 year old.
A perusal of the entries received at the time of writing gives away little in respect of likely results and Olympic qualification. Many of the marathon qualifications have been run at altitude or on tough courses.
The two exceptions and those that have produced the most qualifiers are the PetroSA marathon that was run in Mossel Bay and doubled as the SA championships just five months ago and the Cape Town City Marathon which also took place last September.
The Mossel Bay race was won by Coolboy Ngamole in 2:17:26, while the first woman home was Zehara Dadu in 2:46, neither of whom appear on the entry list supplied.
It is probably safe to say that South Africa’s queen of the roads, Rene Kalmer, will win the women’s race tomorrow and of all the entrants is the most likely to be on her way to the Rio Olympics in Brazil later this year.
Lungile Gongqa of Western Province and Michael Mazibuko of Central Gauteng are the two fastest male qualifiers and both recorded their times in Cape Town.
Gongqa has also won numerous races in East London, inclusive of the fast Windmill 60:11 half marathon and appears to be the man to beat again tomorrow. He ran a sound 2:11:59 at the Cape Town Marathon.
Mazibuko ran 2:12:29 at the same race and will look to dig deeper yet in order to beat Gongqa and any other pretenders who may come along.
Both men are going to be hard pressed to run anywhere near those times again tomorrow.
Ntsindiso Mphakathi, Benedict Moeng, Raphael Segodi and Siyabonga Nkonde were all in the 2:18 bracket at the PetroSA Marathon and will be hoping that five months later they are in shape to kick on to a big one.
In the women’s event Kalmer has her sister Christine in the frame and will be hoping she is on the flight with her to Rio.
Mapaseka Makhanya from CGA ran a 2:37 in Shanghai last August and should be in the early mix, but holding on will be more difficult.
Other names to keep an eye out for are Yolande MacLean from CGA and Tanith Maxwell from Western Province.
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