Kesa is piling on the points
BLOEMFONTEIN-based Kesa Molotsane stretched her lead at the top of the SPAR Women’s Grand Prix table to 21 points, following her second place to British marathon runner Tish Jones in the recent Durban leg of the six-leg 10km Challenge Series.
Both runners are virtual newcomers to the SPAR series which drew an entry of around 15 000 in Durban – divided almost equally into two races, a 5km fun run/walk and the more serious 10km run on a flat, fast beachfront course taking the runners from the start next to the KZN Athletics Stadium in Masabalala Yengwa Avenue and later on a section of Durban’s “Golden Mile” along the Snell Parade.
Molotsane also came second in Cape Town, in the first of the series of six races, before winning the second race in Port Elizabeth and has earned a total of 78 Grand Prix points, 21 more than last year’s champion, Irvette van Zy,l who has 57 points after coming third in Cape Town and second in Port Elizabeth.
Unfortunately Van Zyl broke down during the Durban third leg and had to retire from the race.
The 2015 winner, Lebogang Phalula, is in third place with 51 points after finishing fourth in Cape Town, fifth in Port Elizabeth and third in Durban and is fast closing in on Van Zyl.
Mapaseka Makhanya, the Grand Prix winner in 2013, and Nolene Conrad, are joint fourth with 44 points apiece. Their best showing was in Port Elizabeth where they came third and fourth respectively while in Durban they came 10th and eighth.
Ethiopian Elisabet Arsedo, Zimbabwean Rutendo Nyahora and Glenrose Xaba came in fourth, fifth and sixth in Durban and are now ranked 11th (32 points) and eighth equal (38 points), while Louisa Leballo did not run after winning the first leg in Cape Town and coming ninth in PE and is now sixth in the GP rankings with 42 points.
Surprise package, Jones is a committed marathoner and was taking part in a SPAR 10km race for only the second time, the first in 2016. She is ranked 12th with 30 points and says she will most likely run in at least two of the remaining three SPAR 10km events with one eye on the Grand Prix challenge.
The races still to come are in Pretoria (August 5), Pietermaritzburg (August 20) and Johannesburg (October 8) when the winner of the 2017 SPAR Grand Prix will be decided.
Jones ran a personal best time of 32min 58sec for the 10km event, so was doubly pleased with her victory, which she said was the result of a lot of hard work she had put in at training lately.
Leading the race virtually from start to finish, Jones said she wasn’t quite sure how she had managed to get into the front so early on in the race but in retrospect she was comfortable with the fast pace of the race, although she conceded it did slow marginally over the final two kilometres.
She won the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon last year as well as the FNB OneRun 12km race in the Mother City last month, but was disappointed she did not qualify for the British marathon team to compete at the World Championships later this year. Her main focus will now be next year’s Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast.