EC athletes fail to impress in Heroes Marathon

EASTERN Cape athletes were unable to retain the crown at this year’s Heroes Marathon held in Mthatha yesterday.

The race that started from Mthatha Airport and finished at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu, was won by Tabitha Tsa Tsa from Zimbabwe in the women’s race while Jonas Makhele from Johannesburg triumphed in the men’s race.

Penny Majodina, the Eastern Cape MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture said the athletes’ training programme may have played a role in their performances.

“Although they did not win, runners from our province were in the top 10 for all the different kilometre races. That means they can do better, they just need to adopt better training programmes and exercise on a regular basis.”

She said she has had conversations with several of the athletes coming from Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Tanzania and one thing they all have in common is that they train on difficult, as well as different types of terrain, making this race a walk in the park for them.

“Our athletes need to adopt that and experience self-inflicted pain in order to compete with the best,” she said.

This year, the first Eastern Cape runners in the men’s and women’s open category each received a R2 500 bonus, as an effort to encourage more local runners to partake in the 42.2km marathon.

“This is our motivation to our athletes, its our way of encouraging them to push harder and run faster, they must remember the race is ongoing and attracts runners from all corners of the world, that means stiffer competition,” Majodina said.

Every year, this international event attracts dozens of foreign athletes, many coming from as far as Malawi, Mozambique, Kenya, Namibia, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The number of athletes partaking in the event has grown from a mere 20 runners in 1999 to a field of 1 500 last year.

Winner of the men’s 42.2km race Jonas Makhele said in 2014 he entered the Heroes Marathon but did not win and then vowed to return with nothing but victory in mind.

“I really did put a lot training and preparation into this race and winning just proves what I have always known my body to be capable of. I have my sights set on the Two Oceans marathon now,” Makhele said. —