WATCH: Joburg’s beautiful race to hit the streets

Johannesburg’s most beautiful road race will hit the streets of the City of Gold on 9 October at the Wanderers Club in Illovo.

The Spar Women’s Race 2016 was launched at the Southern Sun Hotel in Hyde Park Shopping Centre with various perennial participants of the race in attendance. There were no less than four Olympians in the room, which prompted programme director, Kass Naidoo, to call for a celebration to honour the Olympian ladies, Christine Kalmer, Lebogang Phalula, Zimbabwean Rutendo Nyahora and Irvette van Zyl.

With athletics fever at an all-time high in the country following the recent Rio Olympics, the ladies of the Spar Women’s 10km Challenge started their usual cat fight over who will finish first on the podium.

First to take the microphone and fresh from successfully defending the Pretoria leg of the race was Nyahora, who said she certainly would be among those to take to the podium.

“I am happy, you just want to be among the podium finishers because you know the Joburg leg of the race belongs to me,” retorted Lebo Phalula, one of the twins of the Soweto road-running Phalula sisters.

Kalmer would not be left out in the cold and believed she had been buoyed by her participation in the Rio Olympics. “I am confident all of you will finish long after me – watch this space,” she said.

The Johannesburg leg is the final race in the five-race Spar Grand Prix, so the country’s top women runners will be taking part in an effort to gain as many Grand Prix points as possible.

Van Zyl currently heads the leaderboard of the Spar Grand Prix with 70 points, followed by Lebogang with 64, Kalmer (58), Lebo (55) and Cornelia Joubert (54).

Spar also announced that three-time Spar Grand Prix champion, Rene Kalmer and popular actress, Mel du Bois of 7de Laan fame would be patrons of the 2016 Joburg leg of the race.

“Our race is not only about top athletes and social runners and walkers, but it is also about fun and entertainment, so it’s with pleasure we have Rene and Mel as our faces of the Joburg challenge this year,” said Martin Webber, Spar South Rand marketing director.

Besides October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the race’s long-standing relationship with Reach for Recovery, the race has, this year, adopted another charity. For the first time, the organisers are also calling on the people of Johannesburg to help those who cannot afford running shoes to donate their old but usable pairs and they hope to collect about 1 000 pairs.

This followed a realisation by some Caxton staff who noticed that many children from disadvantaged schools ran the race barefoot last year. As a result, Caxton is running the Drop off a Pair and Show You Care drive to put running shoes on bare feet.

Participants in the challenge are asked to drop off an old pair of running shoes when they collect their race numbers. The style and size don’t matter, but what is important is that the shoes should be in good condition.

Those who donate shoes stand a chance of winning one of five R1 000 Spar vouchers, one of five sets of New Balance running shoes, or one of five hair vouchers from Tanaz in Sandton.

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