A long-distance runner from KwaZulu-Natal, Siboniso Sikhakhane, feels that the time has come to win the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon, which he has won twice.
Sikhakhane (35) who runs for Entsika Athletics Club, is one of the runners targeted at this year’s Two Oceans 56km race to be run on Saturday, in Cape Town.
This runner who hails from Madadeni, Newcastle, is coming to this race hoping to take out some of the blues from defeating his rival who is defending the title, Khoarahlane Seutloali from Lesotho, who he beat on his heels last year when he won the race.
Sikhakhane finished second in this race with a time of 3:11:18, 31 seconds behind Seutloali of Hollywood Athletics Club who finished in 3:10:47.
This year’s Two Oceans sponsored by the car company, BYD, has mouth-watering prizes as it has distributed a sum of R2.6 million.
The male and female runner-up will walk away with R380 000, second place R220 000, third place R100 000.
“I still say, I should have won the Two Oceans last year. I had a good strategy on how I was going to start and finish the race.
Everything went as planned, but I made a big mistake when I fetched a drum of drinking water from the wrong place, and that’s when I gave Khoarahlane a chance to open a gap and it was difficult to catch up with him,” said Sikhakhane, who finished third in the Prince Mangosuthu Ultra Marathon 52km last year.
Sikhakhane finished second just last year, in 2022 he finished third when he ran the Two Oceans race for the first time, but he did not run it in 2023 and 2024.
This runner, who is trained by the master of running in Mzansi, Hendrick Ramaala, also this year used the race in Botswana, the FNB Kazungula Bridge Marathon of 42.2km, which was held at the beginning of March, to train for Two Oceans.
He finished second in the race with a time of 2:19:17, behind Isaac Mpofu from Zimbabwe who won the race in 2:14:18.
“Since I was able to make a time less than the one I had set for myself, which is 2:20, in the FNB Kazungula Marathon, that means it is still catching up with my preparations at Two Oceans.
My goal is to do a better time than I did last year. I believe that the time has come for me to win the biggest race in the country.
I have made mistakes in the past, but I have learned from them.”
It was only Bongumusa Mthembu in 2019 that a runner from KZN won the Two Oceans.