Runners also deserve recognition
Hidden in among the Super 12 rugby, cricket and football headlines last week was a superb South African sporting result.
Sadly it was scarcely noticed and did not receive the full recognition it deserved. Hendrick Ramaala finished second in the Lisbon half-marathon in a fabulous time last weekend.
It is a disappointing fact to many South Africans that the name Hendrick Ramaala will be hardly as well known as those of our top cricketers, football and rugby players. Yet for quite a while now Ramaala has been running superbly at distances from 5 000m on the track to the half-marathon on the road. He has also proved himself a world class cross country runner.
In a distance running world dominated by east Africans, Hendrick is one of the few athletes able to make any impression on their dominance. He is proof that you do not have to be born near Eldoret on the Rift Valley, or have a surname beginning with "Kip" (cattle) to be able to produce world class performances.
Last weekend Ramaala finished second to the great Paul Tergat, splitting the Kenyan team by forcing Patrick Ivuti into third place.
Tergat, an Olympic 10 000m silver medallist, is a five times winner of the world cross country title and is the Kenyan road and cross country equivalent of Ethiopia's track genius, Haile Gebreselassie. To lose to Tergat, by a mere 14-seconds shows just how classic Ramaala is.
More importantly his time of 59:19 made him one of only a handful of road runners who have broken the one hour barrier for the half-marathon. This time is road running's equivalent of the sub four minute mile and is a huge achievement in any road runner's career.
It is not too long ago that 65 minutes was considered a very fast time for the half-marathon.
Now Tergat and Ramaala are close to two kilometres ahead of running times that were once considered amazing. These runners are now cruising the full 21km at under three minutes a kilometre, and then sprinting the last 1 000m.
Put more simply, they are running 400m laps of a standard track at about 70 seconds a lap. It is a fit runner who can complete one at this pace, yet alone put together 60m laps at 70 seconds a lap, with no breaks, time-outs, referee's whistle or half time to offer relief.
The Lisbon course run across the Tagus River, and alongside adjoining streets, is obviously a key fast course and has produced a string of good times over the years, but it is good to see that Ramaala is now one of the world's best half-marathon.
A number of the runners in the Lisbon race were using the race as a final tune-up for the Spring marathon later this month. Rotterdam, Boston and the harder marathon, are run on the same weekend later this month and some countries are using these marathons as their Olympic trial races.
Tegla Laroupe, world marathon record holder, won the ladies section of the Lisbon marathon and was followed home by Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia and Fernanda Ribeiro, both great track and cross country runners (Tulu, of course, finished ahead of our Elana Meyer in that memorable Olympic 10 000m final in Barcelona in 1992).
Ribeiro is making her debut at the London marathon and Laroupe will run in Rotterdam. Will Tulu run her first marathon?
A marathon race run now leaves more than enough time to recover and run a second great effort at the Sydney Olympics in September.
Tergat himself may be looking at the prospect of his first marathon and certainly Ramaala should also consider the marathon with an eye in Sydney.
Ramaala has already run a marathon, but it was a disappointing debut. He should give himself another chance and join those South Africans who have already proved themselves over the distance. Our defending Olympic champion Josia Thugwane will be racing the harder marathons.
Gert Thys may well race again at the Boston marathon where he did so well last year. If Ramaala joined the pair, South Africa would have a truly formidable trio of marathons at the Olympic Games.
Ramaala has proved he is one of the world's best distance runners at the moment. A switch to the marathon distance may help him prove that while the east Africans dominate distances from 1 500m to the half marathon, South Africans are the best at the marathon.