This year the race will see high-profile sports personalities and administrators grace the event
Kimberley Harriers Running Club will host its 50th Diamond Marathon tomorrow. The race will start from the Christian Brothers College sports ground at 6am.
This is the oldest marathon in the Northern Cape. The first marathon event ever in the province was staged in June 1970.
This year the race will see high-profile sports personalities and administrators grace the event.
Comrades General Manager Keletso Totlhanyo will fire the start gun while former race-winners Gert Thys (1990) and Bernadine Smith (five times) will be among the competitors.
Thys still holds the record for a time of 2:19:05 which he won as a junior athlete in June 1990.
Spokesperson for the organisers Ria Janse van Rensburg said the club are the “proud holders of the oldest marathon establishment in the Northern Cape. The club staged its first event in 1970. At that time one of the surviving founders, ‘Sarge’ Ball, was one among twelve entrants, eight of whom were from Bloemfontein. Ball stopped the clock at 02:45:00”.
Ball stopped running in 1993 during the Comrades Marathon where he quit at Polly Shorts.
