By Stephen Granger
Boasting a new title sponsor and a dramatic change in the event programming, but with many of its old “bells and whistles” and the return of its past champions, the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon, described as ‘the World’s Most Beautiful Marathon’, is back in town and will host several thousand ultra-marathon and half-marathon runners over the traditional Cape Town routes.
While numbers are down, for reasons arguably due to a combination of the impact of the COVID pandemic – the curtailment of the usual build-up of road races leading to the Two Oceans and the enforced small window for entries – and the legacy of some of the event’s governance challenges, there appears a determination by the Two Oceans team to deliver a classic event which will bring satisfaction to its primary clients – the runners.
The most significant change is the splitting of the Ultra-marathon 56km and the Half Marathon into separate days, with the former now scheduled to take place on Easter Sunday for the first time in the event’s history. Not without some initial resistance, the split is undoubtedly in the best interests of both races, with the shorter event now given its own platform and focus.
The Two Oceans Half Marathon has become one of the top 21km events in the country in terms of the stature of the race and quality of the field it attracts but had been forced to survive in the shadow of its longer ‘parent’, the ultra-marathon. The 21km race has received limited media coverage and has effectively become a night race for the leading runners, its pre-dawn start forced by the logistics of the 56km start.
Two Oceans Vice Chair, Allan Ryninks, was upbeat on the positive direction of Cape Town’s top ultra-marathon, although recognises the challenges which have had to be overcome. Surprisingly Ryninks does not blame the pandemic. “COVID has proved a God-send,” said Ryninks. “It gave us breathing space for a reset, which has certainly been needed. We lost two years but have gained the space to strategise, plan and implement so that we can stage a top event this year.”
“We have 5000 racing the ultra-marathon and 12 000 running the half,” Ryninks continued. “These numbers are down on the 11 000 and 16 000 in 2019, where the numbers were capped by City transportation and logistical requirements. COVID meant that the window which opened to accommodate entries was much smaller than in previous years and we are confident that we will grow again in future years.”
Ryninks acknowledged the complexities of hosting the Oceans over the Easter Weekend. “We needed to split the half and ultra-marathons into separate days but that brought us the challenge of staging one of the country’s largest road races on two days of the Easter Weekend, when schools are closed and many the City of Cape Town’s traffic and other officials are away.
“We may well need to move away from the Easter Weekend in future years,” admitted Ryninks. “Accommodating the many churches along the route was something of a challenge. Apart from the formal churches, many church services are held in buildings along Wynberg Main Road, and we had to ensure they had access to those buildings for their Easter Sunday services.
“In the end, we were pleased that we were able to reach an understanding with churches for arrangements for Sunday.”
Ryninks was also delighted that the route, which was forced over Ou Kaapse Weg in 2019, will be back on “Chappies”, with the 10 km over Chapman’s Peak Drive the most scenic section of the race. “We are also marking the Ou Kaapse Weg route, but that is simply to ensure we have an ‘option B’ in case of any last minute eventualities.
“We’ve made a minor change, which was enforced due to having had to move the start of the Ultra-marathon 220m south along the Main Road. To maintain the 56km distance, we’ve introduced a short out and back stretch from Top Gate at Kirstenbosch.”
Another change in this first post- COVID Two Oceans, is the absence of trail running, a feature of the event for the past fifteen years, from the Easter Weekend. Rather than hosting a short and longer distance trail race on Good Friday, the Oceans team plan to stage three trail races later in the year. “These will take place in nature areas away from Cape Town,” explained Ryninks. “We are looking at hosting these in the Kogelberg, somewhere along the West Coast and near Cape Agulhas.”
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