Local runners have never had it so good
For all the criticism the race received this week, the most astounding response to the 2019 Comrades Marathon launch was the backlash the organisers faced after announcing a record purse.
A sense of entitlement seems to be settling over some of the country’s top athletes, and they’re gaining a tremendous amount of support for people who have nothing to complain about.
Should a South African win next year’s ultra-marathon in KwaZulu-Natal, they will pocket R700 000, taking half-a-million bucks for the victory and another R200 000 for being the first local athlete across the line. If they break a record they’ll have another R500 000 in the bank. Let’s break this down. The men’s and women’s records are both tough to beat, of course, so let’s remove that from the equation and our winner (man or woman) takes home R700 000.
That equates to R7 778 per kilometre, which in itself is more prize money than what is offered by most road races around the country.
Granted, securing victory at the race is not a one-day job, and any athlete aiming to win will need to have years of training behind them and at least six months of intense focus on a single task. So calculating their performance by kilometre creates a skewed perception, but it does provide an indication of the reward they’re being offered in return for their efforts on the day.
Perhaps a more suitable approach would be a comparison with a World Marathon Majors race.
As road running analyst Cuan Walker pointed out this week, the prize money for the London Marathon (arguably the best marathon race in the world) is a little less than R1 million.
But to earn that extra R300 000, athletes would have to beat
Wesley Bo on
the likes of Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele, which is a far tougher challenge than beating specialist athletes in the niche world of ultra-distance running, with only a handful of countries taking the sport seriously by any means at all.
Perhaps the best indication of how greedy some of our ultra-distance athletes and their supporters are becoming is the fact that first prize at the Comrades Marathon earns an individual a larger cheque than any other road running race in Africa.
It’s nearly double the prize Stephen Mokoka received for winning the Cape Town Marathon last month, and that’s the only IAAF Gold Label race on the continent.
Until 1995, Comrades winners received no prize money. Just a pat on the back, a towel and an energy drink to quench their thirst. They earned fame, but not fortune.
Bruce Fordyce won the race nine times between 1981 and 1990, and though he made a living from the sport through his own endorsement deals, he earned nothing from the race itself.
Had he been running today, Fordyce would have pocketed R8.8 million in prize money and race bonuses. Instead, he got zilch.
And that trend continues around the world, with ultra-distance races in the United States offering little or no prize money to their champions.
Rather than whining about the millions of rand they can earn by racing on South African soil, our nation’s elite ultra-distance runners need to appreciate that they live in the only country on the planet which provides a platform for them to turn professional.
Never in my life have I heard someone complain about the opportunity to become a millionaire.
You’re also unlikely to hear Bongmusa Mthembu, easily the country’s top ultra-distance runner, bitching about the bottom line of his bank account.
While Mthembu’s opponents are comparing prize purses, he has his head down, training hard and focussing on the task at hand.
An athlete like him deserves the money he earns because he appreciates it, and he realises he has no right to be wealthy, along with the rest of us.
If the image of local ultra-distance running is to avoid any more of a beating from the people who benefit from it the most, we need more athletes like Mthembu, and fewer individuals with entitled attitudes who think they’re bigger than the sport.