Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 96, July 2017 | Page 6

Ma Helping hand for American wheelchair athlete Jean Altomari EDITOR’S LETTER PUBLISHERS Mike Bray & Craig Van der Westhuizen DIVISIONAL HEAD Richard Laskey [email protected] CONTENT MANAGER Roxanne Martin [email protected] I t’s not often that I pick up the lead story for the next edition late at night, in a pub… but then, the Comrades is not a normal event. And if you’re in a bar the day after the race, anywhere in the vicinity of Durban, Pietermaritzburg or a nearby town, chances are you’ll be surrounded by Comrades runners letting off a bit of steam as they celebrate their hard-earned medals. So there I was in Ballito, the Monday after the race, due to fly back to Cape Town the next morning, and I was having a few drinks with work colleagues and running friends, when I happened to meet Mark Joubert and his happy clubmates from Alberton. We got chatting and I soon picked up that there was an unusual story here, especially when I kept hearing various people in the group shouting “Run, Fatboy, run!” Luckily my cellphone battery still had some charge left and I went to work on getting an interview recorded with Mark and his wife Elaine, which I duly turned into the lead story for this edition – and that’s how Mark ended up on the front cover as well. Bringing great stories like this to you, and putting deserving runners like Mark on the cover, is what this magazine is all about – and why I love this job so much – so I hope you enjoy reading it as much I enjoyed hearing it in Ballito. Emotional Expo The other aspect of Comrades that I love is the camaraderie. It starts for me at the Expo, with three solid days of chatting to running friends from all over the world, in between doing interviews with the elites and legends of the race, and just soaking up the atmosphere and excitement. A particular highlight of this Expo was meeting up with the Modern Athlete Comrades Pacesetters. 6 Thanks largely to the superhuman effort of Buks van Heerden, plus an awesome sponsorship from TomTom and further support from PinkDrive, this was the largest group of Pacesetters we’ve ever had at Comrades, and twice during the Expo we even had them at our Modern Athlete stand, singing and d