Namibian athlete Lavinia Haitope successfully defended her Nelson Mandela Bay Half Marathon title by winning the women’s race at Pollok Beach in Summerstrand on Saturday.
Haitope, who runs for the Nedbank Running Club, took her second consecutive victory in a closely contested finish, beating Cacisile Sosibo by a second to the finish line in one hour, 12 minutes and 36 seconds and eclipsing last year’s winning time of 1:14:12.
Central Gauteng’s Sosibo was the first South African woman home in 1:12:37, while Ethiopian Bize Beyira finished third in 1:13:42.
Refeloe Solomons was the first Eastern Province women’s athlete to cross the line in a time of 1:22:12. She was 16th overall.
“I am very happy to have been able to win the race this year again,” Haitope said.
“The course was fine because this was my second time running the race, so I was comfortable with it.
“The weather was also pleasant in comparison to last year.
“Though I am pleased with my finish time, I believe I could have performed better.
“But I was tired because I arrived in Gqeberha late on Friday, around 9pm, and did not have enough time to rest.
“The competition in the women’s field year was tough, especially with my body being tired, which made the race even more difficult because I did not rest enough, but I am pleased to have won the year despite all of that.”
Rogers Murei of Kenya won the men’s race, clocking 1:01:51, followed by KwaZulu-Natal’s Ngconde Matwebu in 1:01:57. Matwebu’s teammate, Cwenga Nose, finished third in 1:02:16.
Melikhaya Frans was the first EP man home in 1:03:19, good enough for 10th overall.
Despite narrowly missing out on top honours, Matwebu and Sosibo won their first senior national half-marathon titles as the race doubled as the South African Half Marathon Championships.
In the process, they earned automatic qualification for the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark, on September 20.
“The wind was too strong for me, but the course was not difficult,” Murei said.
“The competition was tough, but I’m pleased with the victory.
“This is my second time running here, having finished third last year.
“I am happy to have won this year.”
Organiser Michael Mbambani said the race went off incident-free.
“We have a maximum of 3,000 runners here today, excluding the spectators, managers, doctors and physios.
“I would like to thank our sponsors, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, Nike, East Cape Motors and Coca-Cola.
“We are happy that we have actually pulled it through and it was incident-free, and that’s all that counts,” Mbambani said.
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