3 of the greatest Comrades performances

Soccer has done it, cricket has done it, and most sports have selected their player of the last century or man or woman of the millennium.

As we long-distance runners start the build-up to the 75th Comrades Marathon on June 16, it might be worth remembering the greatest runs ever in the history of our favourite race.

Everyone will have his or her opinion and, as is the case in all comparisons of this nature, there is no right or wrong opinion. It is so difficult to compare across generations and from one decade to another but, in my opinion, there are three Comrades' runs by three different individuals that stand head and shoulders above all others.

There have been many exciting and unforgettable runs in the Comrades' 75 years, but these three stand out because, in addition to being exciting, they shared no other common attributes.

Firstly, they broke barriers that had seemed impossible to break, and the second was that the victories were accomplished with such apparent ease.

The first of these special runs must be Alan Robb's 1978 "down" run victory. The facts are that he ran the old, tougher course, in five hours and 29 minutes, becoming the first runner ever to break five-and-a-half hours.

It was not many years before Alan's record-breaking run that potential winners believed a time just under six hours would suffice for victory.

In one amazing run Alan Robb had created the new winning standard of the future. Never again would contenders think in terms of six hours. They all had to readjust their plans and the new barrier was now nearly half an hour or eight kilometres faster than before.

It is a mark of the excellence of Alan's 1978 win that even Jaroslaw Janicki, the winner of last year's Comrades, could not run faster than Alan. Indeed he just missed breaking the five-and-a-half hour barrier - and this on the modern route which is considered more mentally taxing, but physically easier.

Twenty years after Alan Robb's great run, the rest of the world is still battling to catch up with his performance.

On May 31, 1978 no one came close to catching Alan. He won by over 20 minutes and appeared totally unruffled. Who knows what time he might have run had he been closely pursued. As it was, Alan Robb ran his race against the clock and the five-and-a-half barrier. The rest of us ran our own separate races.

No one who witnessed it will ever forget the sight of a thin wisp of a pigtailed girl in the bright yellow and scarlet colours of Benoni Northerns speeding effortlessly along the road in the 1989 "down" run. Frith van der Merwe appeared to glide along the Comrades route to the finish at Kingsmead.

Women had only been permitted to run the Comrades from 1975 and in 15 years, the standard of women's ultra-running had improved immensely. Still, there was a vast difference between the performances of the leading male and female runners. That women were able to earn silver medals and occasionally break seven hours was considered excellent.

Many a faster chauvinist male runner would not contemplate losing to a woman. They should have realised something momentous was about to happen.

In the months before the 1989 Comrades, Frith had been running some outstanding times at shorter distances, the sort of times that the leading males used to view as excellent progress towards an excellent Comrades.

On race day it soon became apparent that Frith was not just interested in winning the women's title. As the race progressed she passed more and more of the male runners. Finishing faster than almost every other runner, she shattered the six-hour barrier and finished an astonishing 15th overall.

She was just five places away from winning a gold medal and at the end was duelling with, and catching, illustrious names like Graeme Fraser, Robb and Hoseah Tjale. In this one spectacular run Frith van der Merwe completely changed the approach to women's racing at the Comrades.

Years later names like Ann Trason and Maria Bak have come close to her performance, but a decade after 1989 Frith is still the "down" run record-holder.

What was even more remarkable about her run was that as she hammered home the first nails in the coffin of male marathon chauvinism, she did so with such grace and running strength. She finished looking as if she could have carried on for a good many more kilometres.

But the greatest run and the greatest barrier-breaking performance of all time must belong to Wally Hayward and his "up" run in 1988. Just three weeks shy of his 80th birthday he ran the Comrades in nine-and-three-quarter hours. At an age when many are bedbound or, at best, leading quiet, sedentary lives, Wally tackled and conquered hills like Inchanga, Field's and Polly Shorts.

He finished with an hour and a quarter to spare and beat about half the field, including many who were not born when he won his last Comrades in 1953.

However, none of Hayward's five great wins matches his "losing" run in 1988. In that race he proved that you do not necessarily have to win to be a winner. In finishing in good time for a bronze medal, he changed our perspective about ageing and what is physically possible.

For many years runners were not permitted to run the Comrades after the age of 65. Wally Hayward proved by finishing tired but happy that this ban was a ridiculous barrier. In a computerised speed-for-age-barrier handicap race he actually won the 1988 by over an hour.

That single run of Wally Hayward's must rate as the greatest performance of the last century. In fact it was so staggering that it must rate as one of the world's greatest athletic achievements of the last century.