Last month in Modern Athlete , we featured a story about Stephen Mokoka joining Hollywood Athletics Club and his plans to focus on the 2024 Paris Olympics . Around the same time , World Athletics published an excellent article on its website about South Africa ’ s number-one distance runner , and the article listed his 21 appearances in global championships , from the first at the World Cross-country Championships in 2008 , to the most recent at last year ’ s World Road Running Championships in Riga . Mokoka won his only global medal , a team bronze , in the half marathon in Riga . His best individual position was fifth in the 2019 World Championships Marathon in Doha , and he placed in the top 10 another four times .

TOP 10 STATS

STEPHEN MOKOKA ’ S TOP 10 HALF MARATHONS 1 59:36 Gdynia , 17 Oct 2020 2 59:51 Buenos Aires , 25 Aug 2019 3 1:00:29 Riga , 1 Oct 2023 4 1:00:40A South Shields , 13 Sep 2015 5 1:00:47 Copenhagen , 29 Mar 2014 6 1:00:54 Gqeberha , 3 Jun 2023 7 1:00:56 Port Elizabeth , 27 Jul 2019

Mokoka , who turns 39 on the last day of February , has won 30 SA titles on all three surfaces – more than any other male athlete – and has set one World Record , clocking 2:40:13 for 50km in 2022 ( subsequently bettered ). He still holds the current SA 15km , 20km and half-marathon records . For this month ’ s Top 10 , here are his 10 fastest half marathons and marathons . The average of his top 10 half marathons is 1:00:41 , and for his top 10 marathons it is 2:08:24 .

Stephen Mokoka

Distance running records in South Africa in March are quite rare , but on the world stage it is even more rare . One of the earliest was run on this day in the famous Stamford Bridge Stadium in England . In a 7-mile handicap race , Walter George became the first man to run six miles ( 9.654km ) in under 31 minutes with his 30:49.0 . Over the next few years , George brought the 6-mile record down

KEY | A - Aided course , e . g . point-to-pointnot record-legal .

to 30:21.5 , and in 1884 set a World Record for the mile of 4:18.4 , before turning professional and taking the record to 4:12.8 in 1886 . The Englishman also revolutionised training methods in the last two decades of the 19th Century , and was the inspiration for the fartlek training method later devised by the celebrated Swedish coach , Gosta Holmer .

South African Road List Leaders for 2024 ( As at 4 March 2024 )

This section lists the best South African performances for 2024 in each of the officially recognised road racing distances .

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About the Author

These stats and results are drawn from the weekly Distance Running Results mailer compiled by internationally acclaimed athletics statistician Riël Hauman , who has more than 50 years ’ experience as a journalist , author , publisher , commentator , pundit , administrator , event organiser , coach , team manager and runner in South African athletics , road running and cross country . He is also a former editor of the South African Athletics Annual , and author of two books , Hardloop en Lééf and Century of the Marathon 1896-1996 . To subscribe to his weekly newsletter , send him a mail at rielh @ mweb . co . za .

KEY | A – Aided course , e . g . point-to-point , and therefore not record-legal .

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