Awards
MODERN ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
Up to Marathon Distances – 25km to 42.2km | Men ’ s Nominees
1 Tete Dijana
While many know Tete for his Comrades performances , having won the ultra-marathon back-to-back in 2022 and 2023 , the latter in a course best time , he is still a formidable marathon runner in his own right . At the very windy Sanlam Cape Town Marathon in October last year , he mixed it with the best , including a strong foreign contingent as well as defending champion Stephen Mokoka . Tete was still with the leaders until the final 4km , before the pace started to increase and he dropped out of the leading bunch , but still finished a creditable 10th in 2:13:24
2 Adam Lipshitz
Known on social media as The Social Runner , Adam is an incredibly talented and versatile athlete , boasting bests of 28:36 for 10km and 1:01:31 for the half marathon , and also a force to be reckoned with on the track . That has seen him regularly employed as a pacemaker in major marathons , but it was his own marathon debut that was eagerly awaited by many … and Adam did not disappoint , running 2:13:01 in Valencia towards the end of 2023 . He said afterwards that he felt he didn ’ t quite get his race strategy right , so it will be interesting to see what he does next time !
3 Stephen Mokoka
Stephen ’ s standout run came early in the year , when he finished fifth in the Osaka Marathon in Japan , clocking a scintillating 2:06:42 . That meant he only narrowly missed taking the SA Record from Gert Thys , who clocked 2:06:33 in 1999 . Stephen would then end his year with a second marathon , losing out to Ethiopian Adane Kebede in a sprint finish for line honours at the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon , 2:11:28 to 2:11:33 , which denied Stephen a fourth win in four starts in this race . Stephen has always raced sparingly , but in 2023 he made those races count , running his secondbest 10km time of 27:59 , clocking 1:00:54 to finish third at the SA Half Marathon Champs , and then posting 1:00:29 in the half marathon at the World Road Running Champs in Riga , which helped SA win the team bronze medal .
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4 Simon Sibeko
Simon is fast creating a name for himself in South African marathoning . After finishing 18th at the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon in 2021 with a time of 2:15.03 , he has steadily improved in the last couple of years . In 2022 he finished second at the Durban International Marathon and seventh in Cape Town , but the big step up came in 2023 , when he not only finished second at the Durban International Marathon , but also took just under three minutes off his PB , going from 2:15:03 to 2:12:05 . It was that performance that saw him selected for the World Marathon Championships in Budapest in August last year .
Up to Marathon Distances – 25km to 42.2km | Women ’ s Nominees
1 Dominique Scott-Efurd
3 Irvette van Zyl
Coming into her debut marathon in London this past year , Dom boasted a half marathon PB of 1:07:32 , making the pundits very excited to see what she could do over the standard marathon distance . London did not go quite to plan , but she still clocked a 2:29:19 . Her second attempt in Chicago later in the year saw Dom run 2:27:31 , making her the third-fastest SA female marathoner in 2023 , and places her fifth on the all-time list of South Africa women .
2 Gerda Steyn
Gerda may have only run the one marathon in 2023 , while once again focusing on the ultras , but that one marathon speaks volumes . Already the SA Record-holder for the distance ( 2:25:28 ), Gerda went to Valencia in Spain at the end of the year to give the marathon another shot , and came back with a massive PB and a huge improvement of that SA Record . Averaging 3:25min / km , Gerda stormed to a time of 2:24:03 – an improvement of 1:25 on her previous record , at a pace that was two seconds per kay faster than before .
At the beginning of the year , few would have thought that Irvette van Zyl was going to run herself into the mix for these awards . Dogged by injury , she only really started racing in June , finishing ninth in the SPAR Grand Prix in Durban , 13th at the Absa RUN YOUR CITY DURBAN 10K and seventh at the SPAR Grand Prix in Tshwane . But then it was as if everything clicked for her . She won the Totalsports Women ’ s 10km in Johannesburg , and went to Budapest and completed a very hot World Champs Marathon in 2:38:32 , to finally lay to rest her bogey of not being able to finish a global meet marathon , after failures at previous Olympic outings . She was then third in both the Absa RUN YOUR CITY JOBURG and SPAR Grand Prix in Johannesburg , won the Sanlam Cape Town Peace 10km , and won her fourth Soweto Marathon title in 2:34:16 . This was the third-fastest women ’ s time ever at Soweto , and Irvette now holds the top three times in this race . She then capped off the year with her second-best ever marathon time , clocking 2:27:29 in Valencia .
ISSUE 165 | www . modernathlete . co . za
Images : Action Photo SA , Felix Dlanga , Maja Hitij / adidas , Felix Dlanga , Erin Groll & courtesy Nedbank Running Club , Adam Lipschitz , Flickr , Comrades Marathon , Two Oceans Marathon