Johannesburg - HOSEA TJALE! Mention that name and any South African ultra runner worth his salt will immediately respond: ‘The Horse”. They are likely to then wax lyrical about how it is a travesty that the man never got to win the Comrades Marathon.
Tjale, you see, was the quintessential ultra-runner – imbued with incredible endurance, patient and possessing reasonable speed. He was the ultimate road running role model for the oppressed black nation back in the early eighties – his victories in races such as the City to City, Korkie and Two Oceans Marathons setting him apart.
Incredibly though, while he was clearly a fantastic runner, Tjale just could not master that long run up and down between the KwaZulu/Natal cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
Since attaining gold via a sixth-place finish in only his second race in 1980, the man from GaMolepo just outside Polokwane in Limpopo Tjale went to every Comrades Marathon as one of the favourites.
He missed the 1981 and 1982 races and returned in 1983 to finish sixth again. What followed thereafter were some fantastic runs that got black South Africans getting off their sofas to start running.
I met him in Durban during this year’s Champions Breakfast of the Ultimate Human Race, the first time he had been out in public since his DNF (did not finish) at the 1995 edition.
Tjale had literally gone into hiding, wanting nothing to do with any running related matters. Many attempts for an interview in those reclusive years were turned down with a terse ‘I don’t want anything to do with that race’.
I’d felt the Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) were bad by not inviting him to their events. But the reality was that the institution in charge of the world famous race was begging Tjale to show up, only for the old man to turn them down.
“I was focusing on my family. I didn’t want to leave them behind. I felt that I’d been away from them for too long and I didn’t want to leave them.”
So it was not that he was bitter at never having won Comrades that he went into ‘hiding’ as many of us thought.
Tjale had actually gotten very sick in 1994 and did not even run that year. Doctors could not tell him what exactly it was he was suffering from, but he ended up having to walk with the aid of a stick. His futile attempt at the race the following year confirmed to him that it was time to end the running.
While he has a couple of runner-up finishes as well as the same number of third places and two fourth spots, Tjale looks back at his sixth place position in 1983 as the year he should have won.
“I ran with Bruce (Fordyce) that year and he shared his drink with me. I had previously just drank the water and the coke on the road but that year Bruce shared whatever it was he was drinking. And I felt good. But he left me at Polly Shortts and without that drink my legs gave in and the other runners overtook me. I loved things and it cost me,” he chuckles.
Tjale ran the next editions on his own steam and had some brilliant runs that saw him become a legend of the race.
In 1989 with Fordyce skipping the race in favour of the World 100km Championships, expectations were Tjale would finally prevail. But it was Sam Tshabalala instead who became the first black man to win the Comrades Marathon.
Tjale finished a distant 10th, but he looks back with delight that he inspired Tshabalala and many other black runners.
“Since I’ve got here (to the Comrades event), everyone has been telling them that they were inspired by me to run Comrades. I was not aware of how much I made an impact. But I am happy’.”
Oh you made a huge impact alright. I run the Comrades because I watched you in the late eighties, cheering you on hoping you would beat Fordyce , only to be left heartbroken when you didn’t. But you – The Horse - remain mine and many black South African runners’ ultra-marathon hero sir.
IOL Sport