IRVETTE WINS THIRD SPAR GRAND PRIX TITLE

Johannesburg, South Africa - Irvette van Zyl (Nedbank) made short work of snapping up the 2016 SPAR Grand Prix with a magnificent victory in the final SPAR Women’s 10km Challenge series race in Joburg on Sunday.
Van Zyl dominated the SPAR Grand Prix throughout the year. She won the first three races, in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban, where her record time earned her 10 valuable bonus points. But a foot injury prevented her from competing in the Pretoria race in August, and it appeared that the Grand Prix might not come her way after all.
“I was determined to come back and earn enough points in the final race to win the Grand Prix and make up for my horrible Olympic Marathon disappointment,” she said.
Van Zyl‘s foot injury forced her to withdraw from the Marathon at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“I so badly wanted to do well in the Marathon to make up for my Olympic Games disappointment in London, when I had to drop out of the race before the finish because of an injury. So now I have two massive Olympic Games disappointments and I was determined to win the Grand Prix as some form of compensation for those disappointments,” said Van Zyl.
Although she could have won the Grand Prix with a place in the top five in the race, Van Zyl left nothing to chance. She surged to the front right at the start of the race and finished nearly a minute ahead of second-placed Mapaseka Makhanya and earned bonus points for a record time.
Van Zyl finished the year with a total of 100 points. She will pocket R160 000.
Second place went to last year’s winner, Lebogang Phalula, who had 79 points. She will receive R53 000. Christine Kalmer, who finished nine points behind Phalula, finished in third place and will receive R32 000. Two points behind her was Phalula’s twin sister, Diana-Lebo, who receives R27 000. Makhanya, who is returning from injury, finished in fifth place with 61 points.
The SPAR Grand Prix celebrated its 10th anniversary this year by matching promising young runners up with former Grand Prix winners, who acted as mentors to the juniors. The mentorship programme proved worthwhile, as the first three in the junior category, were all in the programme. Simonay Weitsz, who was mentored by Makhanya, was top, with 35 points. She also finished in 10th position in the open category, with 33 points. Van Zyl’s protégée, Nicole van der Merwe was second, with 21 points, and Ashleigh Simonis, who missed two of the races, was third with 19 points. Simonis has Lebogang Phalula as her mentor.
In the club competition, the Phalulas’ club, Boxer, finished first, with 365 points. KPMG were second, with 328 and Nedbank were third, with 158 points.
Grand Prix coordinator Ian Laxton thanked the elite runners for making the effort to run in as many of the races as they could.
“This competition is without doubt the premier road running competition in South Africa for women, for both the mass of social runners and walkers as well as the professional elite group,” said Laxton.
“It is clear from a glance at the leader-board that our top athletes, virtually without fail, did their best to run as many races as possible, notwithstanding big international opportunities including World Championships in Cross-Country, European track and road races and, of course, the Rio Olympics. Where our regular elite athletes did not run, generally this was because they were injured,” said Laxton.