ELROY Gelant underlined his current status as South Africa’s best road runner by winning the Nelson Mandela Bay Half Marathon, incorporating the ASA Half Marathon Championships, in Gqeberha yesterday.
At the ripe old age of 37, Gelant is enjoying arguably the best form of his long career, the victory yesterday adding to his title as South African marathon champion following victory at the Durban International Marathon in April.
The Boxer Athletic Club athlete is now waiting with bated breath to see if he will make it to his third Olympics – and his second in the marathon – as one of the top 80 athletes who missed out on automatic qualification.
Speaking after his victory in difficult rainy and windy conditions, the man from Pacaltsdorp near George expressed his delight at yet another major win, and shared his dreams of going to the Paris Games.
“I am still hoping to get into the top 80, and hopeful that I will go to the Olympics. It wasn’t easy,” the man who was wearing the colours of Athletics Central North West said of the race he won from Lesotho’s Namakhoe Nkhasi and his club teammate Precious Mashele, of Central Gauteng Athletics.
“I knew it would be a tactical race, so I had to go in hard early on and then protect myself from the win.
“But when we went out of the university, I broke, and myself and Thabang (Mosiako) and Nicholas (Seoposengwe) worked together – and I told them we should strive to push with the wind on our back to secure the podium position.”
Elroy Gelant is having a spectacular season.
— Athletics South Africa (@AthleticsSA_) June 1, 2024
He won the national half-marathon title in Gqeberha, adding the 21km crown to the gold medal he won at the recent SA Marathon Championships.
#HalfMarathonChamps pic.twitter.com/XeyQDf7j73
The Eastern Province duo could not keep up with him, though, as Gelant broke at the hairpin turn on 18km to race unchallenged to a momentous victory in a time of 63:54.
A winner of the inaugural NMB Half Marathon in 2014, Gelant’s win on the 10th anniversary was pretty special, earning him a cool R100 000.
“When I woke up in the morning and saw that the weather was like this, I thought ‘No need to worry, because you have the experience’,” he said.
“It was the same weather when I won 10 years ago, so I was confident going to the start. And I’d trained well, and the support of my people back home, my coach Jean Verster, my teammates and my girlfriend Tamzin (Thomas, who is a 100m and 200m sprinter) carried me through.”
Meanwhile, Glenrose Xaba retained her national title for the umpteenth time, despite finishing in fourth place overall with a 73:42 effort, behind Ethiopians Tadu Nare (72:01) and Diniya Abaraya (72:31), as well as Blandina Makatisi (73:39) of Lesotho.