Runners’ names emblazoned on honours board
For some runners simply reaching the finish line of the world’s oldest and largest ultra-marathon once is an incredible accomplishment.
For others that feeling of achievement needs to be experienced over and over again.
Just ask Benoni Northerns Athletics Club’s (BNAC) Dieter Stapel and Barry Kendall, to whom the club paid homage for their Comrades Marathon, on the night of Wednesday, September 21, at BNAC’s 12th annual Green Number function since the honours board was first created and displayed at the club.
Stapel achieved his double green number this year, after completing his 20th Comrades, while Kendall earned his place in the prestigious Green Number Club after crossing the line at Kingsmead Cricket Stadium,in May, to finish his 10th Comrades.
It was fitting then that 1966 Comrades winner and 1967 runner-up Tommy Malone was on hand as the guest speaker, to pay tribute to the runners.
Malone was involved in the closest Comrades finish ever when he agonisingly tripped just before the finish line, to allow Manie Kuhn to sneak past and win the 1967 race
LISTEN to his account of that outrageous day here:
Following that he ran eight more Comrades to earn silver medals.
He got his Green Number in 1980, running for Boksburg Athletics Club.
Malone and BNAC founder member Rian van Wyk helped Stapel and Kendall to pull the sheet to unveil their names on the honours board for 2016.
• Stapel’s Comrades achievements: an incredibly consistent athlete, Stapel has won 16 silver medals and is right up there with the best of Comrades runners. He has also achieved one Bill Rowan Medal and three bronze medals (although two of the bronze medals were run under nine hours but were before the year 2000 when Bill Rowan medals were introduced). He has a best time of six hours and 58 minutes, achieved in 2005.
• Kendall’s Comrades achievements: he has achieved his Green Number over a period of 20 years, with his first Comrades being in 1997. He ran and finished the race in 2003 and 2005. Since 2009 he has run consecutively with one little blemish in 2014. He has nine bronze medals and one Vic Clapham Medal.
In closing, BNAC chairman Derek “Irish” Wright said that the club is in a very healthy state.
“For the past two years we have been around the 200 mark for Comrades entries and we were the third largest club (of the traditional clubs) in the country, at this year’s Comrades,” he said.
“We are attracting plenty of new young members, so much so that we have even jokingly suggested that we put up a ‘full-up’ sign.
“We hosted our Benoni Northerns Marathon this year without a sponsor, although, luckily, this was a once-off, as Robor Scaffolding have come on board for next year.”
Also READ:
Benonians dominate the Comrades down run
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