After SA record, Elroy Gelant aims for even quicker time to chase world champs medal

AT THE age of 38, many athletes are way past it.

Not so Elroy Gelant, who is epitomising the saying ‘ageing like fine wine’ by producing performances that far belies his age.

His recent run at the Hamburg Marathon catapulted him into national hero status, and ensured that his legacy will outlive him.

Granted, records are there to be broken, and his 2:05:36 that improved Gert Thys’ long-standing mark from 1999 by 57 seconds will be bettered in time.

The man himself is realistic enough to acknowledge that much.

“I think there’s something more in the pocket, and not just for me individually. I think that we as South Africans have the ability to run faster and get to that 2:04 or 2:03 world standard,” Gelant told Independent Media.

It is just two weeks after he had smashed the 26-year-old record that was fast beginning to look unbreakable, and Gelant is already anticipating the next big goal.

A multiple Olympian who performed best of the South African marathoners at the Paris Olympics with his 11th-place finish, the man from Pacaltsdorp in George has his sights now set on the upcoming World Athletics Championships.

Unlike last year, when he had to anxiously wait for the rankings to see if he had accumulated enough points to earn his place at the Games, Gelant has secured an automatic ticket for the World Championships in Tokyo in September, thanks to that superb effort in Hamburg that earned him fourth place.

“Most definitely,” he says during our interview in the Mother City ahead of the Absa RUN YOUR CITY CAPE TOWN 10k, which he later completed in 28:08 for fourth place.

“That’s one of the things I was thinking about. Last year, it was nail-biting about going to the Olympics or not.

“But what the Olympics did for me was to teach me to ‘believe in yourself’, and when the gun went off, I was like, ‘Whether (Eliud) Kipchoge is in front of me or not, I was going to go for it’. I don’t care.”

It was that attitude which saw him run the race of his life in Hamburg.

“I went with the same mentality to Hamburg, and I am starting to get to where I believe in myself that I can be among the best in the world.

“When I started (running marathons), I always looked up to (Kenenisa) Bekele and Kipchoge. Yet watching them on TV, I felt that these guys were running slowly,” he chuckles.

He did get a chance to test himself against Bekele once, and while the Ethiopian showed him a clean pair of heels, Gelant felt he held his own against the legendary runner.

“There was a time in Belgium when Bekele had to qualify for the 10 000m World Champs in the last race before the qualifications cut-off.

“I had the opportunity to race against him, and it was almost just me and him in that race – he ran a 27:20 something, and I ran a 27:41.

“I always had the belief that I can be better than these guys, and I slowly but surely started to get it back into my mentality that I really can.

“I think that’s what played a big role in my breaking the South African record in Hamburg.”

Gelant could actually have run much faster than the time he did had his hamstring not bailed out on him for a while.

“For the Hamburg race, my watch was set for 2:05:30. That was my target.

“I didn’t focus on the record, because I knew I had it in me to run something way more special than the record.

“I missed my target for the race by six seconds because at 37 kilometres, I got a bit of a hamstring (niggle) and I stopped.

“I was like, ‘My race is over’, and then I thought I am so close to the finish, I can’t give up, and I started running again, going easy until my hamstring eased up.”

As he looks ahead to the World Championships, where he could become the first South African to win a medal at a major global event in the marathon since Josiah Thugwane’s glorious golden run at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Gelant admits he will have to be a little faster.

“The reality is that 2:05 is still average, it’s not fast. You need to be at around 2:02 to be a contender for an Olympic or World Championship medal.”

Such has been his improvement and ‘can do’ attitude in the past three years that there’s every reason to believe that the Boxer Athletics Club superstar can produce runs good enough to compete for medals, even at his ripe old age of 38.