WLLIE Mtolo may never have won the Comrades Marathon, but he is a legend of the race alright. And his love for the Ultimate Human Race can never be doubted.
And thus when the two-time runner up at the world’s most famous ultra marathon says he is committed to ensuring that the Comrades Marathon runs like a well-oiled machine and regains its standing as the premier running event in South Africa, you have to take him seriously.
Mtolo was among the new seven members elected into the Comrades Marathon Association’s (CMA) Board last week, and with the recent bad press the race endured, the redemption task the Board has to perform is mammoth. It is for that reason that a man of Mtolo’s standing in local road running is going to prove crucial in helping CMA regain runners’ confidence.
The 61-year-old who missed out on being the first black man to win the Comrades by a whisker – beaten to the title by the late Sam Tshabalala back in 1989 – expressed delight at having been entrusted with the Board responsibilities.
“Being on the board means a lot to me because I now have the chance to serve this race directly. But there’s a lot of work and we have to hit the ground running,” Mtolo told me days after the elections which were held last weekend.
Now a member of the Entsika Athletic Club where he specialises in coaching ultra marathoners although he also works with other runners, the man who also finished second in 2002 behind Vladimir Kotov, says he was pained by the bad publicity that CMA received after this year’s race.
“As the new board we are going to have to work together to turn the negative narrative the race has had around. We need to see where things went wrong and then work on solving those problems. Once that is out of the way, we just need to be a unified force as a Board and everything will come alright.”
He is aware that as a big achiever of the race, athletes – particularly the elites - will look to him to represent their needs on the Board.
“I don’t underestimate the responsibility that I have on the board. I know that the athletes are expecting a lot from me, as a person who is there and has gold medals from the race. But I am here to serve them and with the men and women on the Board with me, I am sure we will do good things for Comrades.”
A five-time Comrades Marathon gold medallist, Mtolo has finished the race eight times and knows only too well the needs of the runners when it comes to the race and he will do well to ensure that he makes a telling contribution to ensure that the Board delivers on those.
The CMA Board held their initial meeting earlier this week at which Mqondisi Ngcobo was appointed the Chairperson and Mark Leathers his deputy.
The rest of the Board members are Mtolo, Brenda Marolen, Carel Nolte, Rory Steyn, Alan David Gray, Isaac Ngwenya, Nontuthuko Mashimane, James Moloi (Athletics South Africa) and Steve Mkasi (KwaZulu-Natal Athletics).
Entries for next year’s race which will take place on June 8 – a Down run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban – have been snapped up. Even the extra 1000 that CMA put up after the initial 23 000 cap was reached were ‘gone in (the proverbial) sixty seconds’.