Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 121, August 2019 | Page 41

ADVERTORIAL
Can Johannes
Continue SPAR
Grand Prix
Domination?
The 2019 SPAR Grand Prix Women’s 10km Challenge series has reached its
midway point, with Namibia’s Helalia Johannes firmly in the lead after three wins
in the first three races. Now, can she make it four from four in the Pretoria leg on
3 August, or will her change of focus open the door to her rivals? with Janene Carey (Boxer KZN) in second position on
10 points. The leader in the 50-59 category is former
Comrades Marathon gold medallist Grace de Oliveira
(Murray & Roberts KZN), with 11 points. Olga Howard
(Nedbank WP) leads the 60+ category with 23 points.
O In the club competition, Nedbank is firmly in the lead
with 424 points, followed by Maxed Elite Zimbabwe
with 138. Boxer is in third place with 132 points.
n the 23 rd of June 2019, Helalia Johannes
(Nedbank Namibia) exceeded expectations
when she won the Durban leg of the 2019
SPAR Women’s Challenge series in 30 minutes and
59 seconds, the fastest time ever run by a woman on
South African soil. That shattered the course record of
31:18, set by Colleen de Reuck in 2000, and also gave
Johannes yet another new Namibian national record,
in a year that has seen her post five new national
marks across various distances. It also gave her three
wins out of three in the SPAR series, after earlier wins
in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.
Tadu Naru (Nedbank Ethiopia) was second in 32:36
and three times SPAR Grand Prix winner, Irvette van
Zyl (Nedbank Central Gauteng) was third, in 32:57.
The top three all received 10 Grand Prix bonus points
for finishing faster than last year’s winning time of
33:07.
Namibian Helalia Johannes is firmly in the
lead in the SPAR Grand Prix, having won
the first three races in the series
Johannes now has 90 points, Naru has 86, and Van
Zyl, for whom this year’s Durban leg was her first
podium finish this year, has 78. They have opened
up a big gap between themselves and the chasing
pack, with 2017 Grand Prix winner Kesa Molotsane
(Murray & Roberts Free State), who finished seventh
in Durban, currently in fourth place on the log with 67
points.
After the Durban race, Van Zyl made it clear that her
priority had been earning bonus points. “I knew I
couldn’t keep up with Helalia, but I was running for
bonus points,” she said. “As long as you earn bonus
points, you can keep in touch with the top runners. If
one of them doesn’t run all six races, you are right up
there with them.”
Grand Prix coordinator Ian Laxton agrees that bonus
points could decide the outcome of the Grand Prix
title. “Anyone who doesn’t run all six races will battle
to win. The top three are so close that if one drops
out, another is lying in wait for her,” he said.
Johannes, who is the reigning Commonwealth Games
marathon champion, said after the Durban race that
she would be turning her attention to training for the
marathon at the IAAF World Championships in Doha,
Qatar on 27 September. “I have been concentrating
on shorter distances this year, but I will be doing more
long-distance training from now on,” she said. “I don’t
know how that will affect me if I run in Pretoria and
Pietermaritzburg in the SPAR series.”
Van Zyl said the presence of international runners
like Johannes and Naru was doing much for road
running in South Africa. “They are forcing us all to
run faster,” she said. “But it will be interesting to see
what happens in the altitude races, in Pretoria and
Johannesburg. And we are all really going to struggle
to get bonus points next year!”
Helalia Johannes
shattered the
course record
and posted the
fastest time ever
run in South Africa
when she won the
SPAR Durban leg
in 30:59
The Durban race was one of four in which juniors can
earn points in their own category. Naru, who is 18, has
an 11-point lead, with 20 points from the two races so
far. In the 40-49 category, Bulelwa Simae (Boxer WP)
leads the category with 14 points from three races,
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