Cape Town - Gerda Steyn will be looking to complete a rare hat-trick of victories at the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon when she toes the line for the start of the 56km race on Sunday.
The champion in 2018 and 2019, Steyn will become only the third woman in the 52-year history of the ultra marathon to be crowned the winner in three successive editions.
Yet, while the race was first run in 1970, women were first allowed to participate in 1975.
Granted there would have been a two-year gap between Steyn’s second and third success, but that shouldn’t be allowed to take away from the hat-trick feat.
The race didn’t take place in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Steyn will once again begin the race as the favourite, following her splendid showing in the last two editions, the last of which saw her miss the long-standing record by 53 seconds.
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Should she win as expected, the likeable athlete – who has since left Nedbank Running Club and now runs as an adidas ambassador – will add her name alongside those of Monica Dr gem ller and the late Angelina Sephooa.
The duo are legends of the Two Oceans, thanks to their domination that saw them each reign supreme for three years running.
Dr gem ller won the Two Oceans a record four times, a feat she shares with Russian Elena Nurgalieva, whose twin Olesya has won the race three times.
Dr gem ller first won the race in 1988 to set a new course record of 3:41.29, only for Frith van der Merwe to smash it the following year with that incredible 3:30.36 of hers.
But Dr gem ller returned in 1990 to reclaim her title, albeit not in record time.
She then set a record of her own by winning the race again in 1991 and 1992 to become the first woman to complete a hat-trick of successes.
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Her winning times in those three years were 3:42.39, 3:50.23 and 3:49.46 respectively.
Sephooa then emulated her feat a few years later, the road-running superstar from Lesotho first becoming champion in 1997 as Angelina Pitso with a time of 3:45.45.
She returned the following year a married woman using her new surname Sephooa and won again, albeit in a time almost four minutes slower than the previous year.
That year, she also won the Soweto Marathon.
In 1999, Sephooa ran her fastest Two Oceans, winning in 3:38.09.
Steyn has been getting better every year … not only at the Two Oceans, but in just about every race she lines up for and in all distances.
That she is the national recordholder in the marathon speaks to her talent, and she will no doubt be out to smash Van der Merwe’s record this weekend.
If she does that, she will add her name next to those two legends of the Two Oceans Marathon, Dr gem ller and Sephooa.
@Tshiliboy