Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 131, June 2020 June 2020 | Page 12

THE RUNNING MANN
Race Relations
Having taken an in-depth look at the Comrades Marathon Association’s decision not to refund 2020 entrants, let’s now
evaluate the ‘refund or no refund’ decisions of South Africa’s other large marathons and ultras that have been forced to
cancel their 2020 events during the coronavirus pandemic.
Two Oceans Marathon
parking and medal engraving would be reimbursed.
This decision was not a popular one.
Of the ‘Big 5 ultra-marathons’, only Om Die
Dam took place in 2020. The largest four
ultra-marathons (Comrades, Two Oceans,
Irene and Loskop) have all been cancelled due to
the COVID-19 pandemic, with only Loskop able to
offer full refunds. Meanwhile, South Africa’s largest
three marathons are all still tentatively planned for
the last quarter of 2020, whereas the Wally Hayward
Marathon is the only ‘Big 5 marathon’ impacted by the
COVID-19 pandemic to date, but it was able to offer
the choice of a refund or deferred entry to runners.
TWO OCEANS ULTRA
MARATHON
The Two Oceans Marathon (TOM) event, which was
due to be held for the 51st time over the Easter
weekend, is even larger than Comrades in terms of
numbers, with 34 000 participants across the various
races (11,000 in the ultra, 16,000 in the half marathon,
1000 in the trail races, 1000 in the International
Freedom Run and about 5000 in the Good Friday
family fun runs). The formal cancellation of the 2020
race was made by the TOM Board on Saturday 14
March, with the official communication going out the
following morning. Later that day, a National State
of Disaster was declared and all sporting events
nationwide were subsequently cancelled.
The cancellation communication confirmed that no
entry fees would be refunded. However, race T-shirts
would be delivered to all ultra and trail entrants, as
well as a commemorative buff to all ultra, trail and half
entrants, and payments for peripheral charges like
Multiple Blows
Two Oceans was already on the backfoot after being
plagued by negative publicity in the build-up to the
event. A widely circulated open letter from founding
Two Oceans Marathon board member, James Evans,
questioned the 2019 financials, spending and integrity
of certain TOM board members. Whether these
claims are legitimate or not is beyond the scope of
this article, but they have been strongly denied by the
TOM board.
Added to this, there was also self-inflicted PR
damage, like accidentally publishing unconfirmed
2020 entry fees on the TOM website, and the news
that ultra entries would be allocated on a ballot
system for the first time – and then sending out an
ill-conceived press release censuring Sport24 for
reporting on the information displayed on their own
website, followed by an embarrassing official apology
to runners and Sport24.
(The ballot system itself caused plenty of discontent
amongst ultra-runners, but my opinion is that ballots
are much fairer, especially on those from lower
income groups who do not have access to high speed
internet, or flexibility in working hours to get their
entries in. Keep in mind that the ‘pre-ballot’ 2019
ultra-marathon entries sold out in just six hours. A
better communication strategy would perhaps have
prevented much of the negative publicity surrounding
the move to ballot entries.)
There was also wide speculation as to the reasons
behind the unpopular change of route resulting in the
2020 Two Oceans Ultra Marathon being extended by
2km, not to mention that news that the ultra would
be 58km in 2020 was widely known in running circles
long before an official communication went out from
the race office. On top of this, the 2019 race was
impacted by several events outside of the organisers
control, like the loss of live television coverage when
Athletics South Africa (ASA) was not able to reach a
deal with the SABC (or any other broadcaster) and the
extortive threat of on-route violence resulting in a lastminute
route change over Ou Kaapse Weg.
Images: Shawn Benjamin/Ark Images & courtesy Irene Ultra & Stuart Mann
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ISSUE 131 JUNE 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za