Elite athletes from all over the world will descend on the Mother City to take part in the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon which takes place on Easter Saturday, 15 April. The athletes are expected to deliver a top-class performance in both the Half- and the Ultra Marathons.
Caroline Wöstmann and Charné Bosman have dominated ultra running in this country for the past few years, with Caroline taking line honours in the past two Old Mutual Two Oceans Ultra Marathons.
Charné has however chosen to focus this year’s training on the Comrades Marathon, which takes place later in the year. Caroline will be lining up come Easter Saturday and can expect some tough competition from those who are focusing on the 56km Ultra Marathon.
This year there is a top contingent of international athletes who have confirmed their entries. These include Belarusian Marina Damantsevich and Ethiopians Almtsehay Kakissa and Elisabeth Arsedo, all of whom boast personal bests of under 2 hours 40 minutes for the standard marathon.
The fastest marathoner in the women’s field is Marina, who has come to Cape Town with one goal, and that is to win and take home the first prize of R250 000. She boasts a marathon personal best of 2 hours 30 minutes and has run a host of 2 hour 35 minute marathons during her running career. When asked if she plans to break the record, her coach Anatoliy Bychkov said that this record is an extremely tough one to break and that the runner needs to be comfortable running a 2 hour 26 minute marathon to do so. Anatoliy added that she will be ready for the record next year. There is an additional prize purse of R1 million, courtesy of Old Mutual, for the athlete who breaks the records originally set by Thompson Magawana and Frith van der Merwe. Thompson set the men’s record of 3:03:44 in 1988, while Frith set the women’s record a year later in 1989 when she ran 3:30:36. The closest any runner has come since then is Zimbabwean Marko Mambo, who ran 3:05:39 in 2005. Russian Olesya Nurgalieva ran the second fastest women’s time in 2008 when she crossed the finish line in 3:34:53.
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