Twenty-six years ago, Prieska (Northern Cape) athlete, Gert Thys, won the final Tokyo Marathon of the 20th century in 2 hrs 06 min 33 sec – the fastest time ever by a South African athlete. This mark has finally fallen, with Elroy Gelant adding to his ever-enlarging bag of distance-running honours.
Pacaltsdorp raised and Potchefstroom-based Gelant placed fourth in 2:05:36 in a world class field in the Haspa Marathon in Hamburg, Germany, just 1 min 50 sec behind race winner, Kenyan Amos Kipruto, to slice 57 seconds off Thys’ time.
Gelant’s effort resulted in a significant 3 min 20 sec improvement on his previous best of 2:08:56 set in Seville last year, a performance which catapulted him into the Paris Olympics.
And it was in the French capital where Gelant, following an excellent run to finish 11th, began to believe he could race the marathon with the best in the world.
“It was a fantastic run,” Gelant reflected to SPNAfrica. “My success was probably due to the consistency in my preparation over the last three years, but specifically for the Olympic Marathon. That race (Gelant placed 11th) played a big role in my belief that I’m capable of running good times and that I’m capable of beating some of the world’s best.”
Remarkably, at 38 years – an age when many distance elites are contemplating retirement or have already stepped off the treadmill of distance running success – Gelant appears not yet to have peaked in a track, cross-country and road career spanning more than two decades.
“This is a solid performance that I can build on to go even faster, perhaps in the region of 2:03 – 2:04. I’d love to go for that on a fast course like Valencia later in the year.”
Gelant clocked splits of 14:43, 14:39 (29:22), 14:39 (44:01), 14:35 (58:36), 14:48 (1:13:24), 14:46 (1:28:10), 14:50 (1:43:00) and then slowed to 15:49 (1:58:49); his halves were 1:01:48 and 1:03:48.
‘With this performance,’ writes top South African statistician Riel Hauman in the latest edition of Distance Running Results, ‘Gelant, the current SA half-marathon champion, has put the cherry on top (so far) of a career that has included ten national titles — two in the marathon, one in the half marathon, three over 10 km, three in cross-country and one in the 10000 m on the track.’
A measure of Gelant’s consistency and professionalism is the fact he accurately predicted his finish time. “I knew I was capable of running fast. I predicted my finishing time as 2:05:30 on my Garmin watch and missed it by just a few seconds!
“I was not focused on the record itself, but rather on my own abilities to see what I was capable of.
“I’ve been sticking to my training structure – my preparation was 90% the same as before the Olympics – and I’ve identified a few things I still need to work on,” Gelant acknowledged.
“In those last 5-7km you still need to have some legs to mix it with the big guys, so I’ll be looking to build on additional strength conditioning for the muscles. But mentally I’m in the game!”
Gelant’s main focus for the rest of the year is the World Championships in Tokyo in August where his goal is a top five position in the marathon. “I’m planning to race less so I can have a much higher quality output when I do race.
“For now I will take it easy with a slow build-up to Tokyo. I will participate in one or two Run Your City 10k races, likely Cape Town, where I will not race hard given my recovery from the marathon, and then Durban. But my primary focus this year is on international races.”
Gelant’s Hamburg success raises the bar for South African distance athletes and opens the door for further marathon success.
“Huge congratulations to Elroy for his good performance and pushing to be 1st to break through 2 hrs 06 min,” said Stephen Mokoka, who missed the record by just 9 seconds when clocking 2:06:42 in Osaka in 2023.
“Now three of us have run under 2:07 and his mark really encourages us as runners that if we push hard enough, we can run better times and someday be competitive with the rest of world.”
Gelant’s marathon record comes just over a month after his half marathon personal best of 1:00:22 in winning the Bashir’s Run Half Marathon in Belgium and less than a year after running a 27:47 10km PB in Durban.
