For 25km the dream lived on. Were we reliving a “Josia Thugwane moment” 28 years later? There was Elroy Galant, matching strides with the elite men’s marathoners in the world around the outskirts of Paris.
In fact, he’d already left some of the biggest names in the sport, including Kenyan great Eliud Kipchoge, trailing behind him. Right at the front of the race Galant was daring us to believe, running alongside Ethopian Tamirat Tola.
Then came that defining hill on a route which has been described as one of the toughest in Olympic. It was there that Tola surged and would build a lead that never came under threat. In fact, the 32-year-old who had finished second in the 2017 London Marathon, simply made it look like another Saturday morning run. He finally raced through the finish in 2hr 6min 26sec, breaking Kenyan Samuel Wanjuru’s Games record of 2.06:32 from Beijing 2008.
Galant, one of two South Africans in the race, started taking strain at the 30km mark. But he battled manfully over the last 12km, sticking to his task and coming across the line in 11th position, a wonderful effort and showing that at the age of 37 the best is still to come.
Galant’s time of 2.09:07 was over seven minutes faster than his Tokyo Olympic effort was and to be ranked 11th in this kind of company is an amazing effort. After all, as he said: “we’re semi-professionals, I have a day job, competing against full-time professionals, who go into pre-Games training camps for three-to-six months.”
Stephen Mokoka, in his fourth Olympics, was in the chasing group for a long way before also feeling the pace, the hills and the heat – the temperature touched 30°C – got to him. Still, the 39-year-old dipped under 2:11 with a 2.10:59 and his best Olympic return of his four.
In London he’d clocked 2.19:52 and at Tokyo 2020 he didn’t finish.
This was Galant’s moment though and as he reflected on what he’d just done over the sapping 42.2km route, he admitted the hills had got to him.
“I did a course inspection yesterday (Friday) which helped a bit. This is a killer course with those killer hills at 27, 28km. The hills are worse than we get in Two Oceans. Obviously the move was made on that hill and I just didn’t have the legs to go with. But I’m so pleased with my performance, you know, I said my goal is a top 15 and I managed to get that.
“It was tough with the heat as well, especially coming from a Cape winter. But I’m pleased. I could have done a little bit better, think in terms of preparation, maybe. But yeah, I’m satisfied with this compared to my last Olympics. The past eight months was good and I think that probably laid a foundation for this.
“The difference was the hills. I did strength training but it’s difficult. Sometimes you can overdo it by doing too much hills, so you need to have the balance. I think that going forward we needs more of professional approach, you know, I think we need camps. Today was just mentally tough.”
Mokoka admitted that his minimum goal was to finish, considering what had transpired in Tokyo. “This sub-2:11 of mine is a good time. We don’t see too many South Africans running 2:10-something. I think even when Josia Thugwane won the Oympic gold it was slower than that.” Mokoka’s memory is spot on – Thugwane delivered gold in 2:12:36.
“It shows that competition is very tough, so I’m grateful. The hill which goes to the highest point of the race was tough but I expected tougher. What makes it so hard is that we’re running at such a high pace. Coming here I thought we’d be going something like four minutes (per km) but when I looked it was a lot faster than that!”
Now that the men have had their look at the course, they’ll be able to feed back to the South African trio in Sunday’s women’s marathon – Gerda Steyn, Irvette van Zyl and Cian Oldknow. All will be happy to have the reconfirmation that it’s a route which is not just about speed.
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