Big Comrades money shows up SA's Olympic shortfalls

Gerda Steyn had more than 2-million reasons to enter today’s Comrades Marathon, even though she’s set to compete at the Paris Olympics in nine weeks.

The distance queen, loved and admired for her cheery smile and speedy feats, has sparked a debate in athletics circles over her decision to opt for both races, especially after her speedy feats at Two Oceans eight weeks and one day ago. 

Can her body withstand that schedule?

The bottom line is that the Comrades has the potential to boost Steyn’s bottom line by a lot more than winning the Olympic gold.

Winning would net Steyn R825,000 plus another R200,000 as the first South African woman.

Then there’s a R50,000 bonus if she can improve on her 5hr 58min 53sec best time for the Up race from 2019, and there’s a further R500,000 if she improves on the 4min 07.99sec per kilometre record pace she also owns.

That works out to a little more than R2m. 

Had she decided to skip Comrades and put all her eggs into the Olympic basket, the financial rewards would have been far harder to come by and significantly lower.

World Athletics will reward Olympic gold medallists in Paris with $50,000 (about R950,000) each. The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) is offering bonuses of R400,000 to gold medallists, which would push the pot to R1.35m.

Silver is worth only the R200,000 being offered by Sascoc, less than the R297,000 for third place at the Comrades. Olympic bronze is worth R75,000, lower than the R115,000 for the fifth-placed finishers today. 

Steyn, the front-runner at Comrades, will be seeded 39th in Paris, even with her 2:24:03 South African record as her entry time. Top of the list is Ethiopian Tigst Assefa, owner of the 2:11:53 world record, followed by Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, and then two other Ethiopians and three Kenyans.

Steyn and her two compatriots, Cian Oldknow and Irvette van Zyl, are South Africa’s strongest women’s marathon team in history — Oldknow went 2:25:08 in February and Van Zyl 2:26:11 in December 2022.

Behind them are talented runners like Dominique Scott and Glenrose Xaba, who has yet to make her marathon debut.

None of them were considered good enough for Sascoc’s Operation Excellence funding programme, aimed at supporting medal hopefuls. 

If there were development programmes in South Africa, women’s distance running would be one of them. It’s on the up and the room for improvement is huge; if funding and expertise could help get at least one prospect close to 2:15:00 territory, a South African woman could be fighting for an Olympic marathon medal at Los Angeles 2028 or Brisbane 2032.

But Olympic events, including the 5,000m and 10,000m track races, have historically failed to attract the type of investment to combat the allure of road racing’s prize money locally.

There is no compensation for Steyn to skip Comrades. Yet her decision to do Comrades and Olympics has become a debate. It’s perfectly valid to ask whether she can perform at her peak in both races.

Caroline Cherry, having won the Two Oceans-Comrades in 2015, looked unstoppable after winning the 2016 Two Oceans and was leading the 2016 Comrades. Deep into the race she cramped and ended second.

Every person has their limit, although Steyn is confident with her choice. Huge advances in shoe technology appear to keep runners’ legs fresher, and her training includes the Watt bike, which also reduces wear and tear.

The real answer to the question over whether Steyn is stretching herself too far will be answered in Paris.

And should she stumble, the blame should probably be directed at the sports bosses for not doing their best to get Steyn to Paris at her best.