Skip to main content

Reunite Comrades with Youth Day

The ultimate. . . This old man, who dressed up for the race, feels young at heart running the 90km Comrades Marathon. The 2014 edition runs on Sunday

THIS is Comrades Marathon week, as the 2014 edition of the big roadrunning event takes place on Sunday. This fact alone is lost on the imagination of the wider population of the country. Comrades is no longer in the hearts and minds of South Africans, from children to the elderly, as it used to be. Sunday is just three days away and yet the once powerful Comrades spirit is not lingering in the air, and there is hardly any discussion going where people meet, on the radio, social media, nowhere.

In the days gone by the discourse around the favourites and the prestige of the race itself would be reaching fever peak these last days ahead of the big day. What went wrong?
Perhaps the general mood of our society has changed in the past decade that things which used to be held in high esteem do not matter anymore. Could it be that we are now seeking new kinds of inspiration and achievement in different areas and activities? Maybe it's a reflection of dwindling interest in sport, which is highly noticeable in the townships.

However, one factor that is crucial to me was the dissociation of the Comrades Marathon from its previous date, June 16. The two were a perfect combination because Comrades espouses the spirit of youth, while June 16, Youth Day, marked the zenith of youth month celebrations in the month June. While nobody knows much about June 1, there's no escaping June 16 - it is a public holiday! This means the legacy of Comrades Comrades stands a better chance to be preserved through Youth Day.

Moreover, June 16 also needs a national event of international proportions to accentuate its importance, and to drive its central message for the development of the youth, promotion of healthy living and encouraging everyone to set high goals with difficult odds to surmount. In simple terms, June 16 and Comrades Marathon speak the same language, and they say: "Challenge yourself and rise to the occasion."
Nothing beats the sight of a 69-year-old person coming over to cross that finish line, after 10 hours running between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Now, that is what is meant by the enduring spirit of youth because that woman or man in their late 50s and 60s entering this gruelling but beautiful race, let alone finishing it, they are simply young at heart.

Political agendas came between the Comrades and June 16 ten years ago. It was an ill-advised, emotional decision even at the time to separate the two. Any mistake can be corrected no matter how long it takes to do so. To the powers that be, I say merge the two events again; June 16 and Comrades Marathon just go well together. I can't think of a better combination to celebrate all that is good about the spirit of youth from the South African perspective.

About the race this year, the 90km event on Sunday June 1 will be the "down run", starting outside the Pietermaritzburg City Hall to Kingsmead Stadium in Durban.
To all participants, from professional athletes to social runners, may the force be with you!      

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rest in peace Zet, thanks for the good times

Legends. . . Zithulele Sinqe runs ahead of another roadrunning super star Willie Mtolo in 1986 Each time when I drive past ERPM in Boksburg, along Rondebult Road, one name springs to mind: Ernest Seleke. The association comes from the memory of Seleke running in a vest with ERPM emblazoned across the chest area. Back then, in the 1980s, I did not even know that ERPM was an abbreviation for a mine, and that the initials stood for East Rand Propriety Mine. To me ERPM was Seleke, not the gold mine it actually was. Stock, as the lithe running machine was known, was a marvel to watch on TV during that time of my schooldays. However, he was not alone among the crop of SA runners who were nurtured and sponsored by the mines to excel in their sport – both on track and on the road – at that time. There were many products of the mines and parastatals but I can immediately single out Xolile Yawa, Matthew Temane, Gibeon Moshaba, Matthew Batswadi, Ben Choeu and much later Zithulele Sin...

Broos returns respect and the swag to Bafana

When Hugo Broos was announced in May 2021 as the new manager of the South African national football team, the news was received by sneers and jeers if not completely ignored by some of those it affected the most - the SA soccer fraternity. At the time Bafana Bafana, the national team, had not long been labelled a "bunch of losers" by the sports minister Fikile Mbalula. His words cut like a blunt knife, even though the truth is that Bafana were at the time hopeless and lacked confidence. It was fair-game for anyone, including the lowest-ranked nations, to meet Bafana because the chances of scoring a victory over the SA team were real and attainable. So, more than the sports minister, the nation was despondent over Bafana circumstances. Even Broos appointment, despite his known success on the continent, was slammed as that of an old man chasing an easy retirement fund. It was a tough job from the start for the Belgian - having to rouse the players from a comatose of low sel...

The enemy within at Kaizer Chiefs

The new Premier Soccer League in South Africa is in its third week and already there's trouble at one of the biggest clubs, Kaizer Chiefs. The upheaval stems from within, thanks to the club's restless supporters. Restless is an understatement to describe a largely belligerent horde ready to trash and clobber, as they showed once again at Mbombela on Sunday 20 August after losing to TS Galaxy. Chiefs are not winning matches because they are goal-shy, scoring just 1 goal in their opening three matches of the league. That is not the scoring rate to win football matches. But instead of directing their anger to the team's forwards, and to some extent the rest of the outfield players, the supporters are blaming the coach and the goalkeeper. Chiefs No 1 keeper Brandon Peterson is a having a torrid time from the fans, despite his form saving the team from serious embarassment game after game. Against Galaxy last week a stopped four certain goal attempts, and earlier in the month...