Road to Paris: South Africa’s rising women marathoners will be chasing Olympic glory in Paris

From Cian Oldknow to Gerda Steyn and Irvette van Zyl, South Africa has a fast-rising crop of women marathoners eager to contribute to Africa’s Olympic marathon magic as the Games kick off in Paris.

Stephen Granger, bird story agency

As athletes arrive in Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games, South African distance-running talent Cian Oldknow is hopeful she will transcend a recent setback, harnessing the unwavering energy of her supporters with the promise of Olympic glory.

Following the old African proverb ‘It takes a village…,’ twenty-seven-year-old Oldknow was surprised and heartened to see and hear her supporters, dubbed ‘Cian’s Army,’ along the route of the Durban International Marathon, which doubled as the South African Marathon Championships in late April.

“That was a complete surprise, but it certainly gave me a boost,” said Oldknow after breaking the tape in record time,” she recently explained in an interview.

Despite the cold weather, her coach, family and friends were there for her, all donning striking T-shirts with the words ‘Cian’s Army’ emblazoned across the chest.

She will be hoping to witness such a sight in Paris as ‘Cian’s Army’ is on a march, destination Paris. Their mission is to support Oldknow in her quest for Olympic Marathon success.

The Durban International Marathon (DIM) is renowned for catapulting its champions to international success. In the past two years, winners Isaac Mpofu of Zimbabwe and Tebello Ramakongoana of Lesotho used their Durban victories as springboards for impressive international careers.

Both athletes scored top ten positions in subsequent World Championship races, with Ramakongoana coming within seconds of a podium and medal position in Budapest last year.

Record-breaking DIM2024 winners, South Africans Elroy Gelant and Oldknow, will be hoping to leverage similar Durban dynamite at the Paris Olympics.

DIM provided a final opportunity for Oldknow to race the marathon distance ahead of a major block of focused training for her Olympic debut in Paris, but a freak accident – she fell heavily as the finish tape tangled her legs – created chaos with her planned training regime.

“I was out of full training for five weeks,” said Oldknow. “This first week (after the fall) was complete rest and then I was able to start some cross-training. Gradually I built up my strength but it was well over a month before I could train properly,” she explained.

“Initially I was irritated (by the fall) but then the girls who had held the tape came to apologise and I did see the funny side of it… But over time, as I was unable to train properly for weeks, I became frustrated at the negligence of the organisers.”

The fall cost Oldknow weeks of training but could paradoxically work in her favour. In longer distance races, freshness at the start-line is preferable to the over-trained ‘heavy legs’ syndrome, and there are numerous anecdotes of top performances from athletes who, due to illness or injury, couldn’t meet their planned training targets.

According to her coach, George Bradley, “Our general approach is not to train very intensively. Through Cian’s concussion and recovery, we have not had many weeks of training or significant heat adaptation. Perhaps the lighter training regime could even help her.”

This is not entirely disadvantaging for Chesang because, as Bradley shares, “in high adversity marathon… you want to be slightly undertrained.”

“Tough environmental conditions hit you the hardest when you are overtrained… So there’s always something to be said for being a few percent undertrained going into a brutal marathon!”

According to Bradley, Cian performs better in warmer weather.

“She was the leading South African at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst in Australia last year when conditions were really hot… I believe her abilities are best suited to the longer distances, Cian will likely get stronger the longer the race goes,” he added.

Oldknow, credits Bradley with much of her success. One of South Africa’s leading steeplechase athletes in the 1980s, Bradley’s current coaching focus is primarily on junior track athletes.

The two have developed a close partnership and Oldknow has improved consistently and significantly since joining his coaching group. Her 2:25:08 marathon personal best in Seville, Spain, in February, marked a high point in her career and clinched her position in the South African team to Paris.

“George is based in Pretoria and I’m in Johannesburg,” Oldknow explained. “So I do most of my training on my own, although we speak on the phone at least twice a day. He always has my best interests at heart.”

While Cian acknowledges that the hills in Paris scare her a bit, she takes comfort in knowing that she managed the even more challenging hills at the World Cross Country in Australia far better than she had expected.

However, in light of her injury, how does Oldknow view her chances in Paris?

“My goals have shifted slightly since my fall. Knowing I’d lost substantial training, my biggest goal had simply been to get to start line healthily. I’m ranked 61st (of the 95 starters) going into the race, so anything better would have been successful,” she explained.

“But now I’m slowly building some expectations and I’m hoping for something a bit better than that!”

If Oldknow’s recent race results, run as part of her marathon preparation, are anything to go by, she could surprise herself and her ‘army’ by finishing a lot better than 61st.

“She ran a course record in a 15km race in Germiston and then went a few seconds faster when she completed a 2nd lap to secure a 30km training run,” reported Bradley. “She has run three races in recent weeks, including that one, and won all three. And she ran a great 40km run this last Sunday (21 July) before her best-ever pre-marathon track session.”

As Oldknow looks to the future seeing Paris as an important learning curve, Irvette van Zyl (her teammate in Paris) is running in her 4th Olympics seeking to break her chain of ‘DNF’s and reach the finish line in an Olympic Marathon for the first time.

Pretoria-based Van Zyl has also joined the ‘less is more’ approach to training, not through injury or illness, but as a strategic approach to her preparation.

“In (the) past I’ve tried to smash every session out of the park and it didn’t bring me where I had hoped it would,” Van Zyl mused. “So my plan is to get to the start in Paris slightly undertrained.

“When I tried to train twice a day, it compromised me. I’ve learnt my body is fragile and I’m always on the edge of going over. So now I’ve throttled back and keeping to lower mileage.”

Van Zyl is one of the country’s most talented distance athletes who broke the world record for 50km in Gqeberha in 2021 with her winning time of 3:04:23 and has twice finished a close second to her fellow Olympian, Gerda Steyn, in the Two Oceans 56km, both athletes improving a 33-year-old record.

“Being wiser in my approach to training and listening to my body has enabled me to drop training sessions I didn’t need. Also, I’ve had more sleep. Previously sleep was the most crucial element I lacked when training hard (her two young sons contributed to the challenge). Now I’ve been getting a good eight hours plus.

“My training for Paris has been going well, certainly better than my preparation for the Olympics in Japan. I’m now self-coached and found that has given me more freedom.

“All my sessions now have a definite purpose. My recovery is slower, so I have adjusted to training at a slower pace and I don’t run twice on recovery days.”

Van Zyl has noted, with some surprise, the rapid improvements in women’s marathon running in recent years.

“Financial incentives have encouraged many faster track athletes to move up more quickly to the marathon and that’s making a difference,” Van Zyl said. “The times achieved by athletes qualifying for the Paris Olympics are insane!

“Technology has certainly made a difference. Carbon plate insertions into shoe’s mid-soles have reduced times substantially. And huge strides have been made through improved nutrition for athletes and making that knowledge more accessible.

“Those countries who have embraced science are seeing improvements in their athletes. Italian athletes, for example, have improved because greater resources have been invested into their training programmes.”

Van Zyl feels that more could have been done to support South Africa’s marathon athletes to prepare for the Olympics.

“Heat conditioning is needed to maximise potential in Paris. Athletes in some countries have been training in heat chambers but we have not had access to one. I’ve been doing what I can, such as wearing tracksuits and training in the warmer parts of the day and I’ve had some good training sessions. But breathing cold air is still a problem!

Gerda Steyn is the only one of the five-strong South African Olympic Marathon team who has enjoyed the benefits of a sustained training block in warm weather, having been based at her home in the French Alps for the past six weeks.

With her professional approach to her training, Steyn would have left nothing to chance and has reportedly fully recovered from her record-breaking run at the Comrades Marathon in early June.

“I am really pleased with how my training has gone and seeing how my body responds to the shift in training paces,” Steyn reported through her social media channels.

“Being ready to race is not a one-day commitment. You have to be committed to the everyday work in the same way that you committed when standing on the start line.

It’s about using your strengths, pouring yourself into it, being open to learning and reaching higher than before, and also being confident in the work that you do.”

Mdu Khumalo, founder and chairperson of the Phantane Athletics Club, home to Steyn and a number of track Olympians, believes that Steyn will deliver another inspiring performance.

“She regards the Olympics as one of her most important races,” Khumalo said. “And she has prepared hard for it.

“Her (record-breaking) races at Two Oceans and Comrades were so impressive and I believe she has a unique ability to also deliver on the Olympic Marathon.

“Gerda has been an incredible inspiration to our athletes having taken a personal interest in a number of them and we will all be rooting for her as she races in Paris.”

bird story agency