ROAD RUNNING: Julian Drew
THE make of beer that the sponsor has chosen to adorn this year’s Two Oceans Marathon may have changed from Ohlsson to Castle Lite but there is certainly nothing lightweight about the field assembled for Saturday’s race.
Last year’s top five — Simon Malindi, Poland’s Jaroslaw Janicki, Elphas Ginindza and Sipho Masango and Sbongile Ntlabati — will all await the sounding of the fish horn just before the starter fires his gun in Claremont at 6am.
Among the foreign legion out to steal the glory from the cream of local ultra runners will be Poland’s Andrzej Magier, who will want to improve on his 30th place last year, along with Germany’s Kazimierz Bak, husband of 1995 Comrades winner Maria Bak, and Russia’s Mikhail Kokorev.
All three feature in the all-time top 40 over 100km, the standard distance of ultra-running which is almost double the 56km length of the Two Oceans course.
The shortness of the course, but certainly not its degree of difficulty, may play into the hands of the marathon specialists who are attempting the race for the first time. Barcelona Olympic team members Jan Tau and Zithulele Sinqe, who also still holds the South African marathon record of 2:08:04, and 1994 South African marathon champion Daniel Radebe will be making a determined assault on Malindi’s title.
But should any of them misjudge the requirements of this demanding course they will no doubt suffer the same fate as Eric Mhlongo last year when he ran out of steam while leading the race on the long climb up to Constantia Nek.
The women’s field will bring together last year’s winner Eniko Feher of Hungary and the runner-up Jowaine Parrott of Stellenbosch. but they will face stern opposition from both overseas and local Comrades specialists.
Chief among them will be Comrades champion Maria Bak of Germany, Tilda Tearle, a former winner of the Natal classic, and the runner-up behind Bak last year Helene Joubert.