Gelant remains upbeat despite title loss in Durban 10K

Elroy Gelant remains positive despite failing to defend his Absa Run Your City Durban 10K title on Sunday morning, with the World Athletics Championships the bigger picture for the celebrated South African marathon record holder.

Fellow Boxer Athletics Club runner Kabelo Mulaudzi clocked a personal best of 27:41 to win the tightly contested race. Kamehelo Mofolo of Lesotho was second (27:47), Kenya’s Vincent Kipkorir third (27:48), and Tanzania’s Jummanne Ngoya fourth. Gelant crossed the line in fifth, clocking 27:58.

He pointed to a change in the course layout — which added more corners and inclines — as a possible reason for his slower time. Gelant won last year’s edition in 27:47.

“I won’t tell the organiser, but it’s not that fast, especially with the corners. And at 6km to 7km there’s that small hump. For a marathon that might be okay, but for a 10km race, running 2:45s on those hills is not easy. Even a car travelling 120km/h slows down when it gets to a bump — so it wasn’t easy,” Gelant said, after the race.

He remained with the lead group until the final 2km, when Mulaudzi’s decisive surge blew the race open.

Still, Gelant refuses to let Sunday’s run derail his ambitions of a podium finish in the marathon at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo this September.

“I would still say it was a positive run in terms of my preparations for the world championships,” he said.

His confidence is backed by a stellar 2:05:36 performance at the Hamburg Marathon earlier this year — a new South African record — and an 11th place finish at last year’s Olympic marathon in Paris.

“The difference is the self-belief,” he explained.

“Even this year, for me to run that 2:05 was because of the self-belief I gained last year at the Olympics. That’s what I’m taking into the world championships. It’s the belief that I can actually do it that’s slowly coming back.”

“I got a cramp at 37km (in Hamburg), and I think I could have maybe done 2:05:10 or somewhere around there.”

With several East African stars either skipping the world championships or potentially dropping out in favour of major marathons, Gelant believes a top-three finish is realistic.

“Tokyo will be much more humid, but I think with that time you can maybe make the top six — and with the East Africans not there, maybe aim for the top three.”

Reflecting on the East African challenge in Durban, Gelant added: “They were quite good, but I wasn’t at my best today.

"I could feel from 8km that I was struggling. Last year, by 8km I was still idling in fifth gear, and when I got to 9km I said, ‘Let me go into sixth’. This time around, I was already struggling at 8km. The Kenyans are still here — they’re not going anywhere. So they were good, but I also don’t feel they were that good.”