Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 98, September 2017 | Page 31

highlight being Abner Chipu finishing fourth in the
Boston Marathon. One year we also had six out of the
top eight finishers in the SA Half Marathon Champs,
with Abner winning the title. The athletes lived with
us in a dormitory attached to our home, and my kids
grew up in training camps in Lesotho, and it showed
that if you incentivise the guys, they will perform.”
When Max Africa closed in 2002, Alec went into
financial brokering, then became certified as a
registered financial planner. He soon made his mark
in his new field, and in 2008 he was a finalist for the
Financial Planning Institute (FPI) Personal Finance
Financial Planner of the Year Award, and in 2009 he
won it. Today Alec is with Private Wealth Management,
a division of Old Mutual. Today, aged 57, he lives in
Stellenbosch with wife Michelle and kids Camryn (19)
and Jamie (17). He still runs, but is also often seen
seconding Jamie, who is quickly developing into one of
SA’s hottest young triathlon prospects. Not surprising,
given that his father was once of SA’s top ranked
triathletes.
Simpler Days
I got into triathons in the mid-80s after seeing a
poster at the beachfront about a tri event. I was
doing lifesaving and could run, so I just needed a
bike. I won my first tri race, got a sponsorship from
Stellenbosch Farmer’s Winery, and four months later
I was part of the South African team in the London to
Paris triathlon! Those were fun days… we would just
leave our bikes next to a car or leaning against a tree
while we did the swim, and we didn’t wear helmets
back then.”
Alec went on to win an SA Champs title, to go with
You don’t stop.
Neither should your supplement
his SA titles in biathlon and the long run in lifesaving,
and won a number of events, including the Durban
Ultra Tri, which in turn qualified him for the Ironman
World Champs in Hawaii, but due to SA being excluded
from international sport in those years, he was unable
to go. Frustrated, he took a break from all sport and
admits he got very fat and unfit. “When I eventually
returned to tri action, I was teased by my old friend
Mike Bosch for only being on page 17 of the results, so
that night I wrote on a serviette that when I turn 50, I
will qualify for the Ironman World Champs in Kona.”
Having achieved that in 2010, a broken collar bone
suffered in a fall while training in the USA wrecked his
plans to compete, but just six weeks later he was back
in action and finished third in his age category at the
70.3 World Champs in Florida, in spite of his lack of
training. A year later, he was a World Champion.
One supplement
Endless
Possibilities
ENERGY
WELL