Siviwe has enjoyed racing success on both road and trail |
Many industries have found the COVID-19 pandemic hard , with business either vastly reduced , or worse , shut down completely . This includes the running industry , with event after event being cancelled , and it ’ s not just the people working on events that have suffered as a result , but also the athletes . While a small handful of athletes are fully sponsored and have lucrative endorsement contracts that ensure them a solid living , most of the elitelevel athletes rely on prize money ( and sometimes appearance fees ) to live on . No events means no income . That ’ s been the case for 32-year-old road and trail elite Siviwe Nkombi , a regular on the podium in Western Cape races , who saw his main source of income disappear overnight when the lockdown began last March . “ During the first lockdown , we could not exercise outdoors for five weeks , and that was tough for me . With many races being cancelled , I ’ ve also been unable to earn a living , because I rely on winning prize money , so it has been a real struggle for me ,” says Siviwe . And now , with the arrival of the second wave of the pandemic and South Africa once again under tighter restrictions , he is still unable to race , and it hurts even more because he was just weeks away from getting back into action at the 53km Merrell Whale of Trail ultra .
Closed Down ( Again )
The event was supposed to take place on 16 January in the De Hoop Nature Reserve near Cape Agulhas ,
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but it has now been postponed till July , and Siviwe is understandably frustrated . “ I was training hard for this event , but then Anele Bans called me to give me the bad news that it has been postponed , so now I am taking it a little bit easier , because I think I was doing too much mileage . I was averaging 170 to 180km per week ,” says Siviwe .
He adds that he is doubly disappointed that the event is not taking place now , as he felt he had unfinished business there . “ Last year , I was sitting third , behind Kane Reilly and Johardt van Heerden , and I felt comfortable , because I knew where to attack for the win , but as I tried to close the gap , I suffered cramping in both legs . I tried to drink water , and I took energy drinks to sort out the cramps , but eventually I had to stop . AJ Calitz came past and asked if he could give me anything to help , so I said I am cramping , but he said sorry , he didn ’ t have anything for that . Then Bernard Rukadza came past and also asked if he could help me . He even stopped and helped me stretch , then said I must walk with him . Eventually I told him to go on , because I didn ’ t want to wreck his race .”
Still struggling with the cramps , Siviwe was overtaken by the leading woman in the race as well as a few more men , and then the women ’ s leader of the accompanying 5km fun run also caught up to him . “ She asked me to run with her , so I managed that , and I eventually finished seventh or eighth in the
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Images : Dylan Haskin , Thomas Sports Photography , Xavier Briel & Zoon Cronje |