Running on a track filled with stones, while simultaneously ducking footballs and learner drivers, are some of the daily challenges the sensational middle-distance runners, Lebogang and Lebo Phalula, face in their bid for the 2008 Beijing Olympics this August.
Born in Diepkloof Zone 5 in Soweto, the 24-year-old identical twins further share training space with excitable stray dogs and community members who use the sports ground as a thoroughfare.
The cacophony and interruptions invariably confuse the runners and infuriate their coach.
”Heya wena suka lapho [Hey you, get out the way],” shouts coach Lungile Bikwani at a young boy obstructing the athletes in their 200m sprints.
Despite all this the Phalula twins — who prefer to run barefoot — have been training hard. As South Africa’s best women middle-distance runners, they have their eyes set on a higher prize, to make the cut for the South African team going to Beijing.
”At the moment what happens around us does not bother us, we are focusing on qualifying. We believe that you have to work hard and suffer before you are rewarded. We’ll train here so that one day when we have achieved our goals, we can come back and point to this gravel track and say this is where we came from,” says Lebogang.
”The Kenyans train in the mountains and because we look up to them, we believe we have to train in this environment. Our time to get spoiled and train on good surfaces where it’s quiet will come, but that’s not what we want any time soon,” she adds.
The Phalula twins are exact replicas of each other: they look alike, often dress in matching outfits, run the same way, wear the same hairstyle, share the same likes and dislikes and often think the same way. When you ask one of them a question they respond in unison, as though singing.
Unless a conversation takes place face to face, one could easily be confused because they refer to the other as though they are speaking about themselves.
”We are one. We are everything to one another — boyfriend, mother, friend and spokesperson,” one quips just as her sister ends a sentence.
On this particular day the twins are giving their male counterparts a hard time in the 8x200m sprints. They train with 3 000m steeplechase runners Tshamano Setone and Thuso Phaswana, who also have their eyes on the Olympics. Judging solely by the look of determination on the women’s faces, they stand a good chance of qualifying.
”There’s no time to laugh when you are out there and it should start here at the training session. Our opponents are going to have a tough time as our minds are set on making it for the squad,” they say together.
Bikwani agrees the twins are hard workers and have an excellent chance of qualifying. But he thinks other women need to start challenging the twins more so that they (the twins) can improve.
”The results are always obvious and this needs to change because you would find that they win, but the time would be very slow. But the results have improved since I started coaching them in 2002,” he says.
When the Phalula twins started running at high school they came last in races and were often the laughing stock of their fellow runners.
”People used to call us names because we are twins and it was easy for people to notice us, but now we have the last laugh. Taking part in an event with more than 200 countries will be a big achievement for us,” says Lebogang.
For the twins to qualify for the Olympics they have to achieve the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) mandatory A Standard of 2:00min for 800m and 4:06 for 1 500m. Lebogang’s best time for 800m is 2:02 and for the 1 500m it is 4:12, while Lebo’s best times are 2:02 and 4:17.
”It doesn’t help us dominating races and not running Olympic standard time. Our eyes are set on running the best time,” says Lebo.
The twins have been winning most of the country’s 800m and 1 500m races since 1999, finishing first and second on many occasions. Lebogang is the faster of the two.
They have represented the country at a number of events across the world since 1999, including the World Youth Championships, their first major event, though they didn’t make it to the finals.
At the Youth Commonwealth Games in 2001 Lebogang won a silver medal in the 1 500m and Lebo came third in the 800m. At the African Senior Championships in 2006 Lebogang made it to the finals and came fourth; at the 2006 Commonwealth games Lebogang made it to the 800m semifinals, and at the 2007 All Africa Games Lebogang came fourth in the finals. In 2007 Lebogang and Lebo came first and second respectively in the South African Senior Championships.
Molatelo Malehope, development manager for Athletics South Africa (ASA), said it would not come as a surprise if the Phalula twins qualified for the Olympics because of their hard work and dedication.
He says: ”The girls growing up in a township and performing the way they do is amazing and we at ASA always give them the support they need and ensure that they sustain their performance. They are very focused and run races every week.”
Malehope insists that the poor conditions under which the twins train are their choice rather than the result of neglect from the athletics association.
”At ASA we give them monthly stipends, help with medical bills and we take them to training camps abroad. The last time was between June and July when we took them to Germany,” he says.
So far they have participated in five of the six Yellow Pages qualifying events and came close to qualifying for the Olympics in Durban recently when both ran 2:05 in the 800m, an improvement over the 2:09 they ran in Potchefstroom last month.
Despite their vow to go to Beijing, the twins are running out of time in more ways than one. After Friday’s meeting in Pretoria, they will be left with the Stellenbosch encounter next Friday to realise their dreams.
A passion rages in their bellies.
”We are on fire and we are going to the Olympics; keep a good eye on us,” they say.