Nick Bester fancies Comrade Shvetsov

South Africans may have dominated the Comrades Marathon "down" run in recent years, but that supremacy could be usurped in Sunday's 89,3km Pietermaritzburg to Durban epic.

And the one likely to end the local ascendancy is a forgotten man of the world's biggest ultra-marathon, Russian Leonid Shvetsov, who returns to the race this year for the first time since his debut in 2000.

Who says so? None other than Nick Bester, manager of the Harmony Club that produced the last "down" winner, Sipho Ngomane, in 2005. Shvetsov will be turning out in Harmony livery this year.

"For my money, Shvetsov will definitely be the man to beat on Sunday," said Bester, a former ironman triathlete and one-time Comrades champion, of the Russian who finished a gutsy second in the Millennium race.

"He came here and ran a brilliant debut Comrades seven years ago, and since then he has been preparing meticulously for his return, including competing in two Olympic marathons."

The 1,85m-tall Russian finished a creditable 13th over 42,2km in the 2004 Athens Olympics, and also competed in the 2000 Sydney Games.

"Shvetsov is a clever athlete and at 72kg is heavier and therefore stronger than your average Comrades runner," said Bester.

Shvetsov, a medical doctor, first ran the KwaZulu-Natal classic as a personal challenge and was nowhere to be seen during the first half of the 2000 "up" race. But he produced a blistering second half, coming from outside the top 10 to finish a close-up second to Russian three-time "up" winner Vladimir Kotov, who set the "up" run record on that occasion.

Shvetsov's time of 5hr 26min 28sec is the fastest by a runner-up in the long history of the "Ultimate Human Race".

His personal best standard marathon time of 2:09,16 - the fastest yet by a Russian - was achieved in Prague in 1997.

Although he ran that time a decade ago, he is still capable of clocking quick times, as his 2:10,59 effort in the 2006 Lake Biwa Marathon in Japan and 2:10,06 in the 2005 Frankfurt Marathon prove.

The last foreigner to win the race to Durban was Poland's Jaroslaw Janicki in 1999. Since then, races in that direction have been won by South Africans Andrew Kelehe (2001), Fusi Nhlapo (2003) and Ngomane.