Van Zyl praying ‘great journey’ finally ends in tears of joy

IRVETTE van Zyl’s Olympic Games story would easily pass as a script for a horror movie.

Three times the South African distance runner has been to the Games, and three times she has had misfortunes that would have left many an athlete deciding they were not cut out for this.

Twelve years ago in London, Van Zyl made her marathon debut but pulled out of the race before the halfway mark due to injury.

“In 2012 I ran until the 17km mark and then I withdrew. I had severe Achilles tendonitis on my left leg. It was not nice, it was heart-breaking,” she recalls.

“Fortunately, the people couldn’t see me crying because it was raining so much and my clothes looked like they were wet from the rain and not the tears.”

At the Rio Olympics four years later, she couldn’t even toe the start line.

“In 2016, all the hard training was done and I was in Rio. But I was there for like just three days and had to fly back, due to injury. It was like, actually, torture. It was heart-breaking.”

She went to Tokyo three years ago intent on making it third time lucky. But it was not to be.

“In 2021, two days before the race I felt a pain in my back, (and) afterwards it was confirmed I had a stress fracture. I ran until 23km and then I just cramped up and I could not run anymore.”

She will be on the start line of an Olympic 42.2km race for a fourth time in Paris tomorrow morning more confident than ever that she will get to the finish.

“It’s amazing that I am going for my fourth Olympics. I just want to finish on my own terms.”

Van Zyl is one of three South African women in the marathon – national champion and her Hollywood Athletics Club teammate Cian Oldknow and SA record holder Gerda Steyn being the others.

Oldknow is making her Olympics debut, while Steyn is participating in her second.

With all those experiences from three previous Games, Van Zyl is wiser and should surely cross the finish line to finally earn the right to be called an Olympian.

“I am better mentally now. I know what to do. I am just excited to be going again, I am enjoying my running.”

But how does she manage to keep coming back after those disappointments.

“I was wondering just the other day, how did I make the team. After 2021, I was depleted and broken. But my faith – I am a Christian and I pray a lot, especially during tough times – has helped me get through.

“I have had so many injuries and to be negative makes it worse, so I choose to see it as a positive. I have been through so many obstacles and chose to just see them as positives. I decided to make them like the challenges that are stepping stones towards my goals.

“What do they say? Two steps forward and one step back. For me it has been like one step forward and five steps back, but eventually I will get there.”

She is likely to get there – to the finish line – tomorrow in Paris.

“I feel like this is a great journey, that I have made the team because the qualifiers have gotten that much faster.

“Seeing how I started back in 2012 and how I have grown through the years, I am just excited about this one. I get excited with each Olympics, but with the progression I have made, I get more excited and I believe that things are going to work out with this one.”

What gives Van Zyl the confidence that things will work out better this time is the current space she finds herself in.

“In the past Olympics I was running for a different club (Nedbank) and the pressure was different. Now (at Hollywood) it is way different. They don’t really put pressure on you, they want you to reach your goals and it is a friendlier and healthier environment, I would say.

“That will make a huge difference this time, being at a different club. I also think I have learnt so much out of each Olympics and I really want that to help me through this one.”

What should work for Van Zyl this time is the fact that the Paris course is apparently tough and hilly, so the multiple Soweto Marathon champion and mother of two boys should feel at home tomorrow.

“I love hills and the combination I use to run Soweto is what I used to prepare for Paris.

“At least it is not at altitude, so it’s going to be good. I just need to get used to the humidity, which is not my strength. Hills are not my weakness. I am working to adjust on it (humidity). I have a plan of cooling down while I am racing. In Tokyo I was not prepared for the humidity, but this time I am prepared.”

That should help her finally finish the Olympics marathon at the fourth time of asking to rewrite her Games story from the horror movie it currently is to a feel good one.