by Stephen Granger
The Main Road into Simon’s Town appeared to be paved with gold in this morning’s (Sunday 20 February) 55th Cape Peninsula Marathon, as athletes from the gold-vested Murray and Roberts club swept the board, winning gold, silver and bronze in the men’s competition in both the marathon and half-marathon races.
And it was all smiles from local ‘birthday boy’ Sithembiso Mqhele, who celebrated his 31st birthday just two days before racing to victory in this historic Cape Town road marathon, stopping the clocks at the Simon’s Town Naval Sports Club finish in 2 hrs 22 min 00 sec.
Almost 2500 runners completed the two races in favourable conditions with athletes taking advantage of the rare occasion when the strong south-easter stayed away from the race.
While defending champion, Nedbank athlete Lindikhaya Mthangayi, was forced to withdraw from the race before the halfway mark at Bergvliet, the powerful green-vested club gained some consolation with 29-year-old Tshwane chartered accountant, Stella Marais, powering to a superb victory in the women’s race, finishing 8th overall with her 2:38:22 just a minute outside Monica Drogemoller’s 32-year-old race record.
Olympic Games marathoner from Thembisa in Johannesburg, Sibusiso Nzima, turned on the pace in the half marathon to narrowly beat his Central Gauteng M&R clubmate, David Manja, to the line in one of the fastest times in the race history of 1:03:22, while Zimbabwe-born Fortunate Chidzivo, from the Retail Langa club, ran into the record books with a superb 1:12:34 victory.
While up-country runners took away the lion’s share of the prize money, it was Cape Town athlete Mqhele who took the bull by the horns just 7km from the Green Point start, racing clear of his M&R clubmates, Pfarelo Mathada and Thulane Magagula, to run solo for most of the race and record a memorable victory.
The Philippi lorry-driver was almost three minutes clear as the lead runners caught their first view of the sea at Muizenberg, and although Tshwane’s Mathada closed the gap in the final quarter, Mqhele was never going to surrender and went on to win by 1 min 27 sec.
“I’m pleased with my win and form at this stage of the year,” Mqhele said. “My time is about four minutes off my best from the Cape Town Marathon last year, but I achieved my target. I just ran my own race and found the others were slowing after 7km, so I went on my own. My goal is to achieve a top ten finish in the Two Oceans this year.”
45-year-old Johannesburg athlete Magagula took third in 2:26:30 to claim the prize for the first Masters (40 years plus) athlete to finish.
The marathon performance of the day went to Marais, who won the women’s competition by a country mile, finishing 16 minutes ahead of Johannesburg veteran, Kate Rees. In just the second marathon of her career following her debut at last year’s Cape Town Marathon, the Gauteng athlete recorded the fastest winning time at the race for 32 years, just 1 min 3 sec outside four-times winner, Drogemoller, and the third fastest in the race’s history.
After excelling over 10km (she placed 6th in the SPAR Grand Prix series last year) and half marathons Marais, who recently switched clubs from M&R to Nedbank, opted to move up to the marathon and has her sights on running in the low 2:30’s for the distance sometime in the year.
“I’m pleased with my win today and know that I can go a fair bit faster once I have more experience,” said Marais, who had no idea she was close to running a course record. “I think perhaps I went too hard in the middle stages when I was feeling really good and paid for that in the final 10km, which were tough! But I’ve learned a good lesson.
“I think the more consistent pace over a longer duration of the marathon is more suited to my running ability,” said Marais. “So I’m looking forward to a new phase in my career, without giving up on the half marathons. I’m hoping to make the South African team for the world half marathon championships in China later this year.
“Although I have a full-time career as an accountant at KPMG, running provides a welcome balance in my life and I’m aiming to do as well as possible in both.”
While Marais was in a class of her own, the contest would have been somewhat tighter, had Johannesburg athlete, Adele Broodryk not suffered from a serious stomach ailment along the way. The only athlete to stay with Marais in the early stages, she was still in second position at 35km before falling back to finish 7th in 3:02:40.
Cape Town’s Danette Walley, winner of the Bay to Bay 30km last month, was unable to prevent a Gauteng clean-sweep of the medals, finishing fourth in 2:59:09 behind Rees and Jeannie Henderson.
Three of South Africa’s leading distance athletes, all running out of Johannesburg, dominated the half-marathon, with defending champion, Philani Buthelezi, dropping behind after 14km and leaving Nzima and Manja to fight out top honours.
“I have recently returned from a long and troubling groin injury and I’m enjoying being back in the action,” explained Nzima. “After the Rio Olympics in 2016 it has been a long struggle, but with COVID bringing an end to races, that gave me a chance to recover.
“I had planned to go out at around 2:55 per kilometre but the gentle head-wind slowed us to around 3 min per kilometre. I made sure I set a fast enough pace from the start so that Manja could not use his speed to get me at the finish!”
Nzima’s plan worked to perfection and he opened a small gap in the final kilometre to win by 3 seconds in 1:03:22 – just 46 seconds outside Jeffrey Gwebu’s course record set in 2002.
“I’m hoping to get into an international marathon to run a fast time and qualify for one of the South African teams to the Commonwealth Games in August or the World Championships later in the year.”
The race saw the return to racing of one of the country’s leading marathoners, Endurocad’s Nolene Conrad, and she ran a solid race to place third in 1:17:50, with Chidzivo winning by four minutes ahead of Nedbank’s Anel Terblanche.
Chidzivo’s outstanding 1:12:34 was 31 seconds inside Conrad’s course record, established in 2018.
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