Calculators will not predict who wins Comrades Marathon

THE “phenomenon” that is the Comrades Marathon apparently has a mood and it is the state the race is in that will determine what transpires on Sunday.

According to KwaZulu-Natal Athletics president Sello Mokoena the world-famous KwaZulu-Natal ultra is not the kind of race you can easily predict. Responding to a question about whether the incredibly fast 5.18.19 record set by David Gatebe for the down run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban two years ago will fall, Mokoena was non-committal – but said “an amazing run should not be ruled out”.

“Comrades Marathon is not just an ordinary marathon, it is a phenomenon. On the day the Comrades Marathon decides if the record falls or not. It is not us with our little calculators who decide,” he said yesterday during the race director’s media briefing here.

“So the record has nothing, or very little to do with, the distance, as some of you seem to think this year’s new finish at Moses Mabhida will have on it.

“But what has a lot to do with it is what mood the Comrades Marathon is in on that particular day.”

He tshared a story told by Com- rades king and record nine-times winner Bruce Fordyce, to illustrate his point. “We’ve learnt from the people who have been there. Bruce Fordyce always says, ‘When I ran the event, on the morning I don’t think of the record. But people along the road, especially at halfway around Drummond, sit there with their calculators and they shout at me. They say, ‘Well today the pace is slow, the record is not on the cards’. Every time I’ve heard that, that is when I broke the record. The race depends on how I feel.’

“So, don’t be surprised if a new re- cord is on the cards,” Mokoena said:

Logic suggests that it will take a very long time before Gatebe is usurped as a the down run record-holder – it took nine years for the mark set by Russian Leonid Shvetsov to finally fall.

But stranger things have happened in this race over the more than 90 years it has been run.

And, with the R440 000 prize carrot dangling for the record to fall, there’s every reason the elite runners will strive to get to the finish in lightning-fast time.

The weather forecast for Sunday is perfect for running.

However, without those very famous hot spots from the past races, it remains to be seen if the contenders will go out fast.

There used to be prize money for the first runners reaching certain landmarks and this made for pretty fast races. The few contenders Independent Media spoke to during the build-up to the race steered clear of the “R” word, the majority of them estimating that the winning time would be just under the 5:30 mark.

In the women’s race, Frith van der Merwe’s phenomenal record of 5.54.43 set in 1989 – 21 years ago – is not thought to be under threat because of a depleted field. The Benoni teacher astounded the running world by not only winning the women’s race, but finishing 15th overall.