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Jun-13-2007
Russians & South Africans Poised to Dominate Comrades Marathon
by Riel Hauman
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
South African men have won the last three "down" Comrades Marathons, but it seems likely that a Russian will be first across the line this Sunday, June 17, when the 82nd running of the world's largest ultramarathon takes place between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. The distance of the race this year is
89.3 km.
The ultramarathon will be run on a Sunday for the first time in history.
This unpopular decision, widely seen in the running community as the result of the Comrades Marathon Association bowing under political pressure from governing body Athletics South Africa, has led to a decrease of about 15 percent in entries. The last few years the race was held on Youth Day (June 16), a highly politicised public holiday in post-apartheid South Africa.
Foreign women have dominated the Comrades in recent years, with the last local victory coming in 1998 when Rae Bisschoff won. Most pundits expect that this year will be no different.
South African hopes for victory rest on defending down run champion Sipho Ngomane and Brian Zondi, who was second behind Oleg Kharitonov in last year's "up" run. In 2005 Ngomane finished second in the Two Oceans ultramarathon over Easter and then ran a storming Comrades to finish in 5:27:10, the fifth fastest time ever, and at 23 became one of the youngest winners ever.
In this year's Two Oceans Ngomane was seventh. Two weeks before, he had won the downhill Elands Valley Marathon for the third time in a row, running
2:21:03 (the slowest of his three wins). In February he also ran the Matla Black Gold Marathon.
Zondi's courageous run in the 2006 Comrades, his first, won him many fans and although his surge at the top of "Little Pollys" hill ultimately was his undoing, he showed that he was not afraid to challenge the the more experienced runners. He has kept a low profile this year and one has to look far down the Two Oceans results list to find him in 55th spot. He must have gained further confidence after his third place in the 2006 SA Marathon. The question will be whether, as a relatively inexperienced ultrarunner, he can produce the correct tactics for the down run - a totally different affair than the up race.
It should be remembered that in 2005 Ngomane's lead over the last 10 km was cut substantially by a hard running Kharitonov. The Russian made a tactical mistake by hanging back - one he is sure not to repeat this time. He will be running his seventh Comrades and after two consecutive second places in the down run came through last year to finish first in the opposite direction.
Kharitonov beat Zondi by more than 2 minutes and although it was the slowest winning time since Alberto Salazar triumphed in 1994, the world 100-mile track record holder displayed remarkable strength. He has become a consummate ultrarunner and even though he may lack the speed of some of his rivals, his strength may be enough to overcome the pounding of the down run and see him through over the last 10-15 km.
One runner who could beat him is Russian compatriot Leonid Shvetsov, the fastest marathoner among the top contenders (he has a 2:09:16 PB), who was second behind Andrew Kelehe in the 2001 down run. He finished only 37 seconds in Kelehe's wake and disproved the belief that the down run is better suited to small, light-framed men (he is 1.85 m tall and weighs around 72 kg).
Shvetsov is 38, a year younger than Kharitonov, and last year showed that he has lost little of his marathon speed when he was fourth in the Lake Biwa Marathon in 2:10:59. In 2004 he was good enough to finish 13th in the Olympic Marathon. A medical doctor who lives in the USA, Shvetsov is a serious challenger for the top spot.
Another challenger, even at 49 years-old and arguably the best Comrades runner since Bruce Fordyce, is Vladimir Kotov, who has never won the down run. The fourth-place finisher in the 1980 Olympic Marathon who now is resident in South Africa, Kotov won three up runs in a row and set the record in 2000, but has always fallen short when the race finishes in Durban. He has been battling an injury during the last months of 2006 and early 2007 and it is unlikely that he will be able to improve on his third place of 2006 and fourth in the previous down run.
Kotov decided not to run the Two Oceans this year and has been training quietly, following his usual regimen of cold-weather preparation in Europe, and even at 49 his rivals will make a mistake if they discount the tough Belorussian.
Other runners who have a chance for one of the coveted ten gold medals given to the top-10 finishers --although not necessarily for a win-- are 2003 winner Fusi Nhlapo, 1999 champion Jaroslaw Janicki, Kelehe, Johan Oosthuizen, Mohala Mohloli, Claude Moshiywa and Elias Mabane. Kehele has a remarkable record in the Comrades: he has been out of the top five only twice during the past eight years, placing second, fifth, first, ninth, fifth, fifth, third and seventh.
In the women's race Olesya Nurgalieva makes a return after concentrating on the marathon last year. Russian women have won for the past four years, and in three of those the winner's name was Nurgalieva - the other half of the twins, Yelena. The only time the two sisters were beaten was in 2005, the last down run, when Tatyana Zhirkova easily broke their dominance. (That was also the only time Olesya finished ahead of Yelena, who was injured.)
All three will be back --as will be Marina Bychkova-- and although the twins finished "only" third and fourth in the Two Oceans, with Zhirkova an out-of-sorts seventh, they will start the race as favorites. They have a huge amount of experience, but should not forget that runners have won the demanding race on their debut in the past.
And this time there is such an entrant who can put a spoke in the wheel:
another Russian, and the athlete who beat them all to win the Two Oceans (also on debut), Madina Biktagirova. Like Kotov a former citizen of Belarus, Biktagirova is by far the fastest marathon runner in the field and in the Two Oceans showed no sign that it was her first race longer than a marathon.
Her winning time was the second fastest ever and if she can handle the extra distance on Sunday she will be hard to beat.
Although Biktagirova's PB of 2:24:46 was run ten years ago, even her 2:28:21 for victory in last year's Eurasia Marathon has not been approached by any other woman in the Comrades. In the 2006 Boston Marathon she finished one place and 10 seconds ahead of Olesya Nurgalieva, who is twelve years younger than Biktagirova's 42.
Bychkova has never won, but has one of the most formidable series of performances in the Comrades: she has not been lower than sixth in the last eight races, with second last year in the second fastest time ever (when Yelena Nurgalieva set a course record 6:09:24) and fifth in the last up run.
The battle for being the first South African will probably be fought between Farwa Mentoor and Riana van Niekerk. Mentoor has achieved top spot among the locals for five years in a row, with a highest placing of third in 2004, but seems more comfortable on the up run. In the Two Oceans she was a relaxed ninth (also the first South African).
The only problem with Van Niekerk, third South African last year behind Mentoor and Yolande Maclean, is that she may have raced too much. Her prodigious schedule this year included wins in the Om die Dam 50 km (where she clocked the fifth fastest time ever by a South African on a standard course over the distance), the Indian Ocean Marathon, the Jackie Mekler 50 km, and the PetroSA Marathon, while she also set a PB 2:43:00 for third in the SA Marathon. She beat Maclean in the first two of these races. She was 16th in the last down run.
Other South Africans who will try to break up the Russian juggernaut are Lindsay van Aswegen, Mene Olivier, Madeleen Simmons (formerly Otto) and Grace de Oliveira.
The sheer distance of the race and the severity of the terrain makes the Comrades outcome very difficult to predict. The only thing one can say with certainty is that the 2007 race will again produce a titanic struggle for the first prize of R200,000 (USD 28,000). A surprise, especially in the men's race, is very possible, as Nhlapo in 2003 and Ngomane in 2005 showed.
The facts and figures around the logistics of the race are staggering: 1.1 million water sachets, 400,000 plastic bottles, 2,000 littler bins and 10,000 litter bags, 448 bags of oranges, 5400 kg of bananas, 350,000 sachets of energy drinks, 1000 kg of chocolates, 500 kg of potatoes, more than 200 kg of biscuits and 2000 cases of Coca-Cola will be distributed along the route.
One of the Comrades legends, five-time winner Wally Hayward, will be honored with a new medal named for him, which will be presented to those runners who miss gold but still run under 6 hours - a time first beaten in 1953 by Hayward. His Comrades career spanned sixty years and the record of oldest finisher ever still stands behind his name - he achieved the feat at the age of 80 in 1989. Hayward died last year at the age of 97.
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