Cape storm backdrop for Golden Ticket opening

Gale force winds and giant waves battered the Mother City on Monday (July 13), providing a powerful setting for one of the most anticipated trail running events on the sub-continent – the official opening of the South African ‘Golden Ticket’ segment.

Athletes from all over South Africa, and likely neighbouring states, are expected to travel to Cape Town over the next months to run the segment – a challenging 30km route over and across Table Mountain – in search of a magical ticket providing passage to the Golden Trail Championships in the Azores in October and the chance to earn substantial prize money.

Trail running typically embraces a spirit of adventure in the wild outdoors, and today’s stormy conditions provided a dramatic backdrop to the opening scene of what promises to become compelling athletics theatre as the golden quest unfolds.

Golden Trail’s announcement that they were “scattering” 76 Golden Tickets around the planet provided the script for the drama. Ticket winners will receive all-expenses-paid trips to the Azores to compete in the 2020 Golden Trail Championship, a 126 km four-day mountain stage race scheduled to commence 29 October.

Twenty-two athletes were gifted Golden Passes from the outset. Spanish star, Kilian Jornet, unquestionably the best trail athlete over any distance the world has ever seen, and talented Swiss athlete, Judith Wyder, topped the respective Golden Trail World Series tables last year, earning their place on the Azores starting line.

So too did the ‘best of the rest’ – the table’s ‘top eleven’ – comprising the world’s leading male and female marathon-distance trail athletes.

For 76 other athletes, the quest to claim a Golden Ticket has now begun. A ticket can either be won through achieving the fastest time on a Golden Trail Strava segment or by excelling in one of a number of high-profile races, mostly in Europe, which are still scheduled to take place.

For Southern African athletes, the passage to the Azores is via Table Mountain. The fastest male and female athletes to complete the segment any time from Monday and before 1 October will win a trip to the North Atlantic Island Group. Should the Championship not take place or if an athlete is unable to fly due to COVID restrictions, Golden Trail has committed to a prize of €500 (about R10 000) each for the fastest male and female athletes over the segment.  

Cape Town-based trail athlete, Meg Mackenzie, the only African athlete with a Golden Pass already in her back pocket – courtesy of her superb 5^th place on the 2019 table – was the perfect athlete to open the segment. She duly accomplished that last week in impressive style, but it took two attempts to clinch the deal.

“I had a technology blunder…I think I ran it fast, but my watch did not pick up my activity and I had nothing to show for it,” Mackenzie admitted after ‘take one’ ten days ago. “I think I ran about 3 hrs 20 min – it felt great and I was pleased to feel so strong.”

Incredibly, technology was again a factor second time around, when Mackenzie ran the segment last Wednesday.  Her watch again failed to record the segment, but fortunately Salomon SA representative, Kane Reilly, had put a contingency plan in place, which prevented the need for “take three”.

“The rules state you can have a segment recorded against your name with a watch time from an accompanying runner, so I decided to run the route with Meg last Wednesday with another watch as a back-up, just in case,” Reilly explained. One of the few male athletes capable of staying with Mackenzie, Reilly’s watch time of 3 hr 39 min officially opens the Golden Ticket South African segment against Mackenzie’s name.  “She was incredibly strong on the route, and is in top form,” reflected Reilly. “We’re lucky to have an athlete of Meg’s standing to open our segment.”

Although she had been cautious about a second hard run within days of her first attempt, Mackenzie was delighted at how the second ‘take’ had gone. “My body felt absolutely fine – the second run wasn’t hard at all.

“I think it’s a fun route, although going up Kloof Corner and then Platteklip Gorge at the beginning of the segment is really hard. But once at the top of Platteklip, its super-fun running the Ultra-trail Cape Town route along the front of the mountain.  The boardwalks on the top of the mountain were icy and slippery, though, so we took it really easy there – more like crab-crawled across them! I recommend that anyone looking for a good time goes when it’s hotter and takes it easy on the boardwalks.

“For me, everything seems to be shaping up very well for the Azores championship. I may have some other races first as I’ve been invited to run in some trail and mountain races in France and Italy. The Golden Trail race would then be the last – but of course, everything is still uncertain right now.

“It was all very confusing with the watches, but in the end we just went with the one which seemed to be showing the segment best, which was the slowest of the times. We did stop a lot for photos, so that might have led to the differences. But I’m really not worried – the aim was simply to set a time to open the segment, which I’ve done. Fortunately, I don’t need a Golden Ticket to get to the Azores!

“I’m sure the competition will be strong. I think that Toni (McCann), Landie (Greyling), Bianca (Tarbonton) and Hayley (Preen) will be the main contenders in the women’s competition, with Johardt (Van Heerden) and Kane (Reilly) in the men’s. I’d love to see Siviwe Nkombi give it a go as well.”

(Story updated on July 16)