Flying Fusi knew it was his day
Fusi Nhlapo, South Africa's latest sporting hero, spent much of his formative years running away from kids laughing at him because he was so skinny.
He's still somewhat on the lean side, but nobody's laughing now.
As the new Comrades Marathon champion, Nhlapo is the real deal when it comes to ultra-distance road running.
"Everybody respects a champion. There is only one Number One," an elated Nhlapo told Saturday Star in an exclusive interview at his modest but comfortable Sebokeng, Vaal Triangle, home yesterday - his first day home since his heroics on Monday, which brought him great pride and even greater riches.
"I listened to the cassette Stand Up For The Champions all the time before Comrades and I had convinced myself that I would be a champion."
Nhlapo, born in the rural area of Reitz outside Bethlehem, says he grew up running.
"When I was at school in QwaQwa, a soccer player or something took us kids to run. 'I want to see who's strongest,' he said. Well, some people beat me - I think I was top 10 out of 20 kids - but I was very happy because it means that I can beat some people," recalled Nhlapo, who turned 32 on Wednesday, a birthday he shares with President Thabo Mbeki, with whom he had lunch at Tuynhuys as part of a group of "extraordinary South Africans".
"In Grade 2, I was always late for everything, so I started running to school and back home, and running to the shops for my mum. I liked to surprise her because she expected me back in 20 minutes, but I was back in five.
"I ran everywhere and people were saying, 'is he mad?'. But I was never late again."
Coming from a large family - Fusi has two brothers and five sisters, all younger than him - where money was tight, was not easy.
"Money was very little and to buy my first pair of (running) shoes was difficult," he says. "My father cried about me being so skinny. 'You will die out there on the road when you are running,' he told me.
"So, before he would buy me shoes to run, I had to prove to him that I could run. He saw me run the first time barefoot. My very first competition was a 21km (half-marathon), and I felt strong and finished fourth.
"Later he came and said, 'here's money to buy shoes', and I was happy.
"I went to the kids who used to laugh at me and I said to them, 'yes, I am skinny, but I can run'!"
The youngster then borrowed R50 from his mother to enter a race in Bethlehem.
"When I was running, I remembered that this was not my money, so I ran fast and came second. The prize money was R250, and my mum gave me R20 of it."
And in 1994, Nhlapo won his first race, a 15km event in Bergville, in what was only his third competitive outing.
The former Iscor labourer, who only began training seriously in 1996, had to wait quite a while for his next victory, which came in the country's second biggest race, Cape Town's Two Oceans 56km Marathon, in 1998.
But it was June 16, 2003 that really changed his life, and his tactically superb 89km run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban earned him around R500 000 in prize money and bonuses.
"I knew I would win," he beamed. "I wanted to win to show people that you can go where you like, as long as you are mentally strong.
"But I did it not so much for the money... I did it for my God, who was with me all the way. My pastor told me before the race that if I did not win, he will know that God is a liar because he had prayed so hard for me to win. Now I believe in Him even more than ever."