Comrade Kelehe's Up to the Russian challenge

Former champion Andrew Kelehe has enough motivation to win his second Comrades Marathon title and make history on Friday.

And according to his coach, he's ready to do just that.

Kelehe's longtime friend and coach John Hamlett said on Tuesday that his charge was well on track to become the first black athlete to win an up and a down title in the history of a race first staged in 1921, as well as become the first runner ever to win 10 consecutive gold medals for a Top-10 finish.

"Andrew's looking vicious at the moment, having spent the last eight weeks training at an altitude of over 2 000m in the mountains around Dullstroom (Mpumalanga)," Hamlett said of the 41-year-old former police officer who won the Comrades down run in 2001 to become only the third black to win the event and shoot himself to instant stardom.

"His motivation is that nobody thinks he can win the up run, and he would love nothing more than to beat the Russians at their own game," said Hamlett.

"On the last up run two years ago, Andrew was alone against three Russians in the closing stages and they simply psyched him out, but this time our tactic will be to force them to come to our race and not the other way round."

"Andrew is the type of runner who needs to attack from the back and that's the way he'll play it on Friday. He won't get suckered into going toe-to-toe with the Russians again."

Hamlett said that after placing fifth, ninth, fifth and sixth in his last four "up" runs, Kelehe desperately wanted to take the next step up to prove that he's no one-hit wonder.

"Two years ago he didn't have that killer instinct, but this time he looks aggro and he's been running his training partners into the ground," he said.

"On the Steenkampsberg climb outside Dullstroom - the highest tarred road in southern Africa which Andrew has been using to test himself - he's been running the eight-kilometre climb comfortably in 31 minutes, and a pulse-rate check at the top shows he was cruising."

Kelehe will come down from the mountains on Thursday evening and then rest up, followed by supper of a whole fried chicken the night before the big race - a winning recipe for him five years ago.

And if he does manage to make history on Friday, Hamlett will suggest to him that he hangs up his racing flats once and for all - "while he's on top".

- Kwaito star Kabelo will be tackling his first Comrades on Friday and will raise funds for four charities.

One of those is Houghton House - a drug rehabilitation centre in Johannesburg "which I attended three years, nine months and 13 days ago!" - for which he has set up a trust fund for addicts who cannot afford treatment. His target is 10 and a half hours.

Harmony, his Pretoria club, have kick-started his fundraising with a R240 000 donation.