Two races into the five race series, Mr Price runner Rene Kalmer is firmly at the top of the SPAR Grand Prix leaderboard, with 66 points and a 13-points margin over second-placed Poppy Mlambo.
Kalmer won the Port Elizabeth Women’s 10km Challenge in May, and followed up with a victory in the Durban Challenge on Sunday in a personal best time of 32 minutes 54 seconds.
Her time was faster than the winning time in the 2006 Challenge, earning her 10 bonus points. She also received three points for finishing in the top 30, and 20 points for winning, giving her a total of 33 points.
Second on the leaderboard is Mr Price teammate Poppy Mlambo, who came third in Sunday’s race, behind Tabitha Tsatsa of Zimbabwe. Mlambo has 53 points from the two races, but Tsatsa, not being South African, is not eligible for the Grand Prix.
Annerie van Schalkwyk of Irene is in third position with 38 points, followed by Noria Sibanda of Harmony, with 36.
The evergreen Grace de Oliveira, who finished tenth in the Comrades Marathon on June 17th to claim yet another gold medal, finished 24th overall on Sunday, but by winning the veterans section, she claimed a total of 13 points, and is now in fifth position on the Grand Prix leaderboard, with 35 points.
Both Mlambo and Kalmer will miss the third race in the Grand Prix series, the Pretoria Challenge on August 25, due to international commitments.
Kalmer will be taking part in the Nedbank SA Half Marathon Championships in Durban, whereafter she will be on national duty at the All Africa Games in Algeria, and the World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan, where she will compete in the 1500 and 5000 metres events.
“Missing a race means that there are any number of top runners who can overtake me, and I need to be in peak condition to make up any points disadvantage in Cape Town in September and Johannesburg in October,” said a determined Kalmer after winning in Durban.
The next opportunity for runners to earn Grand Prix points is the Pretoria Challenge on August 25, followed by the Cape Town Challenge on September 2. The final race in the series is in Johannesburg on October 14, following which the winner of the Grand Prix will take home prize money of R50 000.
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