With the competition of such high quality, the right tactics will be vital if South Africa’s teams are to do well at the cross- country championships
ATHLETICS: Julian Drew
IT seems like only yesterday that South Africa’s finest middle-distance athletes first put their reputations on the line in what is widely regarded as the toughest race on the world athletics calendar. That was in March 1993 when South Africa competed for the first time in the world cross-country championships – held that year in Amorebieta, Spain.
While it was quite obvious that with four truly world-class athletes in the senior women’s squad it would be they who would collect the laurels, there were high hopes for the men as well.
Such expectations were not perhaps so surprising considering that distance greats like Mathews Temane, Mathews Motshwarateu, Willie Mtolo and Zithulele Sinqe could have mixed it with anybody in the world in the decade preceding the lifting of the sports boycott. But even though Hezekiel Sepeng and Josiah Thugwane have shown in Atlanta that it is in the middle- and long-distance events that South Africa possesses the natural talent to make a real impact in international athletics, so far our men have failed to impress in the most exacting arena of all.
In what will be South Africa’s fifth appearance at the world cross-country championships in Turin on Sunday that situation seems unlikely to change. The only difference this time will be that there is also little prospect of our women doing well. Only Zola Pieterse of the four team members who narrowly missed out on the bronze in 1993 will do duty in Italy.
Olympic 1 500m finalist Gwen Griffiths competed at the world indoor championships in Paris two weeks ago while Elana Meyer and Colleen de Reuck are focusing their efforts on the Boston Marathon in three weeks’ time.
The women’s team appears to be the weakest ever to represent South Africa and even Pieterse – who finished fourth in 1993 and seventh in 1994 and actually won the title twice in the colours of England in 1985 and 1986 – will probably be happy with a top 20 finish after adopting a more low-key approach to her running since the birth of her daughter in 1995.
Last year’s winner, Gete Wami of Ethiopia, has come into form at just the right time with her win at the Cinque Mulini World Cross Challenge race two weeks ago and she will lead an extremely strong Ethiopian team which also includes 1995 winner Derartu Tulu.
Finland’s Anne-Marie Sandell moves to the senior ranks this year after winning the junior world title in 1995 and she, along with Romania’s Elena Fidatov and the Kenyans, will challenge the Ethiopians for the individual title.
In the men’s race the onus will be upon Wits law graduate Hendrick Ramaala to try and improve upon Shadrack Hoff’s 15th place in Stellenbosch last year – the best individual effort by a South African male to date. That will be no easy task for Ramaala. The reason the world cross-country championships are considered so demanding is that unlike the track events at the Olympics, or world championships where athletes compete only in their specialist events, most athletes from the full spectrum of middle- and long-distance events – from 1 500m all the way up to the marathon – compete together in cross- country.
This is Ramaala’s first year of full-time athletics, however, and after graduating last year he raced in December and January on the World Cross Challenge circuit in Europe. The World Cross Challenge is a series of 12 cross country meetings around the world which began in December and culminates with the world championships. Athletes gain points related to their finishing positions in these events with the world championships scoring double points. At the end of the series the athlete with the most points is the winner of the Challenge.
In January Ramaala was placed second in the table but he has since fallen back to 10th. “It was very good experience for me and fortunately I was running well at the time. The top athletes go out very fast at the beginning and then hold a steady pace after about 2km before picking up again at the end when they sprint for the finish. If you don’t stick with them right from the start then you will have no chance of catching up,” said Ramaala.
In Durham, Ramaala was leading in the latter stages of the race and eventually finished third, just two seconds behind Kenya’s 3 000m world record holder Daniel Komen who was the top middle-distance runner in the world last year.
Since then, though, Ramaala’s form has dipped. He finished 20th at the Cinque Mulini World Cross Challenge, nearly two minutes behind the winner, where he opted to compete to try and boost his points total in the Challenge rather than attend the national track championships in Potchefstroom. He succeeded in adding just one point to his tally and appears to have overdone his speed training in an attempt to sharpen up for the world championships.
With Hoff missing in Turin following his hernia operation in January, it will be up to his Pretoria Correctional Services team- mates like John Morapedi, Patrick Kaotsane and Laban Nkete to try and lift the men’s overall standing and improve on last year’s seventh position in the team event, which was also the best to date.
They will have the first three from last year’s South African cross country championships – Tsunaki Kalamore, Stephen Phofi and Ezeal Thlobo – to help them, but as is the case with the women, they will have to plan their racing tactics carefully in order to maximise their potential and score well as a team. Last year Morapedi and Simon Morolong joined Hoff at the front of the field in the exceedingly quick opening stages of the race and later paid the price when they faded towards the end to finish 50th and 95th respectively.
The less experienced athletes – both men and women, senior and junior – must adopt a more realistic race plan and run together as a team at a pace with which they are comfortable, taking it in turn to pace one another. Only in the final kilometre should they go flat out for the finish.
It will be some time yet before South Africa can challenge the Kenyans and as we slowly but surely catch up on the ground lost during isolation we must be realistic about the way in which we approach such races.
Although Kenya, Ethiopia and Morocco are in a league of their own at the moment there is no reason why South Africa, with its current crop of talent and the correct tactics, should not head the rest of the chasing pack and claim fourth position in the team event above countries like Portugal, Spain and Britain.