Durban - Tete Dijana and Gerda Steyn both broke long-standing Comrades Marathon records as the men’s and women’s winners of the down run from Pietermaritzburg to Kingsmead Stadium in Durban yesterday.
Dijana successfully defended his Comrades title after smashing the down run record in a time of 5:13:58, beating the previous record held by David Gatebe of 5:18:19 that was set in 2016, securing R1.2 million in cash prizes in the process.
The North West man, who works for security company Mi7 National Group, dedicated his win to his children and his coach.
“I dedicate this win to my children as I had to be away from them for two months, and also my coach, who believed in me. The race was very fast and I didn’t even think about the Comrades down run record, it was only in the last 5km that I realised that I had a chance of beating it.”
Last year, Nedbank Running Club employed a strategy in which they ran as a team.
Dijana said a similar strategy was used this year.
“The race was very fast. I kept communicating with my teammate Edward Mothibi, telling him that we need to make a break but we can’t go early. Eventually, we decided that after 60km we had to make a break. Piet Wiersma pushed me all the way, but I knew there was no way he was going to catch me. I did have to sprint at the end.” Wiersma, who is from the Netherlands, said that he was disappointed with the second-place finish.
“I am feeling a bit disappointed, I think I could have started to speed up a bit earlier, maybe I would have had a chance to catch Dijana. However, if I did speed up earlier there is a chance that I still wouldn’t have caught him.
“This is the biggest race that I have run, the atmosphere at the Comrades Marathon was incredible. The supporters make the race feel that it’s not challenging even though it’s so difficult. The supporters make you want to push even when you feel you can’t.” Mothibi, who finished third, said that the Nedbank runners worked well.
“The race was fast and it was difficult as all pre-race strategising went out the window, but we let the race go deeper and it worked out well for us.”
Steyn, of the Phantane Athletics Club, said it was the best day of her life after she smashed the 34-year-old record set by Frith van der Merwe of 05:54:43 in 1989 by 10 minutes when she crossed the finish line in 05:44:54.
Steyn said she woke up feeling good and knew that she was prepared, that she had done the training and the weather was good.
However, she conceded that she had been tired towards the end of the race.
“I was certainly tired at the end, it’s the Comrades Marathon and this morning I lined up with a plan to run my best possible race, and that was always going to mean digging deep at the end of the race, and I’m quite proud of that,” said Steyn.
The runner missed the 2022 race to focus on the New York Marathon, and joined her new club at the beginning of the year.
Steyn said Phantane was a development club that found talent in rural areas and schools, and was new to the Comrades and ultra-distance scene.
She said that after discussing it with her husband, she decided to donate some of her Comrades winnings of R1.2 million to the club.
“They support me, they helped me get to the start line and with that I want to also give back. I will definitely 100% be donating to Phantane after Comrades,” said Steyn.
Second place in the women’s race went to Adele Broodryk, who said she had had fun from the start of the race.
“I had three plans in mind and I smashed plan A, so I’m quite happy about the result that I had today, and also having those two little ones (her children) again at the finish line made it extra special,” she said.
Taking the third place in the women’s race was Carla Molinaro, who was seconds away from breaking a sub six.