South African trail runners chasing Golden Tickets

Table Mountain, one of the continent’s most iconic landmarks, holds the fate of South Africa’s top trail athletes hoping to win a Golden Ticket and a trip of a lifetime to the Azores. Top runners will be vying for the tickets on a segment of the mountain from Saturday (July 3).

A Golden Ticket represents an all-expenses-paid trip to compete in the 2020 Golden Trail Championship in late October.

The Championship, which offers substantial prize money, consists of a four-day, multi-stage race totalling 126 km. The trail includes climbs up the highest peaks on the Portuguese Island group. 

Twenty-two Golden Passes have already been secured by the leading eleven male and female athletes from last year’s series and a further 76 Golden Tickets have been made available in twenty countries around the planet.

Two of those tickets have been made available to South Africa, the continent’s leading country in trail racing. This week it was revealed that the two tickets will be allocated to the fastest male and female athlete to complete a specially-designed trail “segment” on Table Mountain, any time before 1 October 2020.

In a non-COVID world, the tickets would likely have been on offer at a particular race, with the respective winners the beneficiaries. The cancellation of races has led to the decision to make use of the ‘run a segment’ approach, which is becoming ever-more popular in trail running circles.

“It’s great that we can now move forward with a contest in South Africa for the Golden Tickets. This will give our top athletes something challenging to aim for in the next months with a fantastic prize at the end,” said Salomon SA representative, Kane Reilly. 

“We have decided to follow the lead from Salomon International in the manner of making the tickets available. With the exception of one or two countries, where races are still scheduled to take place in coming months, all destinations have opted to go the route of setting a ‘Strava Segment’ to decide the destiny of their Golden Tickets.

“This will mean that any athlete can record a time for the segment or course on any day before 1 October – in fact they can run it as many times as they wish to set a faster time in an attempt to earn the trip to the Azores.”

The Golden Trail programme is gradually reaching out to a wider target audience, with Golden Tickets on offer through segment challenges in Australia, Japan, Mexico and South Africa apart from the traditional trail-running strongholds in Europe and North America. “Unfortunately we could not invite the entire world,” explained series supremo, Greg Vollet. “We based our selection in countries where Salomon had races or ambassadors to set up the segments or races.

“But athletes from other countries could still qualify.  An athlete, such as Kenyan Lucy Murigi, could travel to a place where there is a segment or a race, such as Sierre Zinal in Switzerland, where she has previously excelled and where there are five golden tickets to be won for women.”

The South African quest for gold gets underway on Saturday when Meg Mackenzie, the country’s leading trail athlete and holder of a Golden Pass for her fifth position in last year’s series, sets the first time for the designated segment. 

“We are delighted that Meg will be opening the challenge tomorrow,” said Reilly. “Salomon SA have developed a close relationship with Ultra-trail Cape Town, and it seemed appropriate to use their 35 km route as a basis for the segment.  This will provide a stiff challenge to trail athletes in terms of strength, speed and technical ability.”

Mackenzie has already earned a Golden Pass, so her time tomorrow will not contend for the golden-ticket, but will set the bar high for all those to follow.  “I’m super excited for running the segment,” Mackenzie said.

“The route I will run will not be the exact UTCT course – I’m going to cut out the road section at the beginning and possibly the UCT section too.  So it will be shorter than 35km, probably more like 30km.

“I’ll definitely still run it fast-ish though! I‘ve been running on flat farm roads for months so I don’t know how my mountain legs will fare over such a tough course but I’ll just go have fun with no pressure.

“I really hope it’ll create some excitement and provide a good leader-board for everyone to go for. By making it slightly shorter it will possibly lure more people to have a go. And going to the Azores fully paid for is a big deal, so I think all the top women and men in the country will come out to try it.”