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By Riel Hauman
Elana Meyer will return to competitive running at the Caltex Foot of Africa Half Marathon on October 7. Meyer, who “won” the race as a 13-year-old in 1980 and is still the world record holder for the distance, turns 40 three days later.
Meyer has also decided to enter the 2007 Old Mutual Two Oceans ultramarathon over 56 km –-her first racing venture longer than the standard marathon distance. Among her long-term plans is the conquering of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, in 2008.
Her last road race was the Lagos Half-Marathon in November 2004, where she finished third in 1:24:40. After that she went through a difficult time in her personal life and retired from competition.
In a recent e-mail she said the decision to run the Two Oceans on April 7 was “a big one” and added: “The previous two to three years have been very difficult emotionally and I did not enjoy my running.” She said she was looking forward to the new challenge.
After the Foot of Africa she is planning to run the Hutch Delhi Half-Marathon on October 15, and will probably use the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon on December 3 to achieve her Two Oceans qualifying time. Her last finished marathon was the Pacific Marathon in Mazatán in December 2001 (which she won in 2:32:53); she failed to finish the Los Angeles Marathon in March 2004.
Meyer is without doubt the greatest female distance runner produced in South Africa and her new plans will resume a glittering career that saw her set six word road records, win 30 South African titles, and triumph in the World Half-Marathon in 1994. In 1992 she won the silver medal at 10,000 metres in the Barcelona Olympics after a classic confrontation with Ethiopia’s Derartu Tulu.
A role model for many young (and older!) South Africans, Meyer has always set an example with her hard work and focused approach as an elite runner, yet without losing her personal warmth and accessibility.
She ran the Foot of Africa Half-Marathon on a challenging course in the small country town of Bredasdorp in 1980 and finished first in 87:10, but was disqualified because she was under the minimum age to enter a half-marathon. Four years later she hit the national scene for the first time when she set an SA junior record of 53:18 in the national 15 km title race –a time that was bettered only in 2002.
In 1987 she won her first SA senior title on the road, in the 10 km, after also taking the 3000m gold on the track and the cross-country crown earlier in the year. In the course of her career she would amass 30 gold, 14 silver and five bronze medals in national championships and set 23 national records.
She ran her first world record, 67:59, in the SA Half Marathon in May 1991 and followed this up with a global record of 46:57 for 15 km six months later. In 1994 she set a world record of 15:10 for 5 km and then three half-marathon records in 1997 (67:36), 1998 (67:29) and 1999 (66:44), all in Japan. Her 15 km time was beaten by 2 seconds by Kayoko Fukushi earlier this year, and although there have been faster half-marathon times on aided courses, her 66:44 in Tokyo on January 15, 1999 remains the world record.
Her marathon debut came in the 1994 Boston race, where she finished third in 2:25:15, still the fastest time by a South African. Over the next seven years she estab-lished a remarkable record in major international marathons: second, second and tenth in Boston, third, third and fourth in Chicago, fifth in London and tenth in New York.
Between February 1991 and June 1992 Meyer won 50 consecutive races, a streak that has not been approached by any other female athlete in the world. Competing frequently in the U.S. since 1994, she won 20 of 44 races, among them Peachtree, Cherry Blossom, Gasparilla, Crescent City, Lilac Bloomsday and the Bellin Run.
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