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Long-distance champion Elroy Gelant walked away with the laurels in the Two Oceans half marathon in Cape Town. Next in his sight is the Denmark Marathon, after which the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokio is beckoning.
What a comeback
According to Jean Verster, manager of the High Performance Institute at the campus in Potchefstroom, Elroy shows no signs of the injury niggles that bothered him a while ago.
“He has joined us for a few sessions after first training on his own and he is starting to look like the Elroy of old,” says Jean.
“I’m almost shocked by the quick improvement he has shown. He is busy with a mammoth comeback and I’m confident he will reach not only the same heights as before, but go even higher.”
Elroy, a Big Mac and Copenhagen
Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, is straight out of a travelogue. Bright hues of orange, yellow and red adorn the facades of the multi-storey houses that decorate the Nyhavn Canal.
In the city centre, Strøget Street snakes past red-brick churches and coffee shops selling vaffelkos while Baroque and Dutch Renaissance architecture intertwines with modern influences to form a smorgasbord of colours and contours.
For Elroy Gelant, this will all pass by in a blur as he scouts for a large yellow ‘M’ sign while heading to Øster Allé Street. There he will join 25 000 other participants in the Copenhagen Half Marathon on Sunday, 15 September this year.
Looking for fuel
There are four McDonald’s restaurants in Copenhagen and Elroy will be looking for Ronald’s welcoming smile, for part of this elite athlete’s pre-race preparations is a Big Mac burger.
For the 21 km that covers most of Inner Copenhagen and Frederiksberg, this will form part of the fuel that will fire Elroy’s quest for the South African half marathon record.
“My goal is to beat the South African half marathon record in Denmark later this year and to do that I have to run a sub 60-minute race,” says Elroy.
It is as much a mental as a physical challenge for the Olympian.“A marathon is like a game of chess. You have to make your moves at the right time and you must watch other people’s moves. It is about perseverance and your will to win.”
Elroy would know. He recently won the Two Oceans half marathon in Cape Town, and the 32-year-old assistant at People and Culture will be in high spirits as he heads to the Scandinavian Peninsula.
Then, when it is time for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Elroy will have to learn to say: “ビッグマック、お願い”. A Big Mac, please.
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After Elroy’s victory in the Two Oceans half marathon, vice-chancellor Prof Dan Kgwadi gives him a congratulatory letter on behalf of the university and wishes him well for his next marathons.
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