Kelehe’s moving victory

BUSINESS DAY, 21 JUNE 2001

AFTER THE DROUGHT, a deluge. The sport came thick and fast this weekend. Television-watching muscles that had become soft through weeks of inactivity were made to stretch and ache as we reeled under the accumulative pleasures of having rugby, soccer and the Comrades marathon to digest in the space of two days. Of course, they were not undiluted pleasures. With renewed competition comes the shadow of defeat.

Happily, it was not defeat but the feet of Andrew Kelehe that kicked off the weekend. As stirring as it was to see the small man powering away from the Russians and surging into the stadium with all of SA riding on his shoulders, the moment of real beauty came as he crossed the finish line to be almost bowled over by his tearful wife Rose. Is there any dream that strikes a greater chord in the competitive heart of man than to have completed an epic trial in triumph, to be met with the wordlessly weeping joy and pride of the woman you love? It moved me to the quick.

At a stroke, Andrew Kelehe was Odysseus returning after 10 years on the wide and salty deep, and Rose was his Penelope. Who among us could hear her sobbing testimony without tremors of envy: “He is my husband,” she told Trevor Quirk, “and he keeps doing the impossible. He can do anything.” Is that not, deep down, what we all dream of one day hearing our wives and lovers say about us? I would guess Andrew will not be on washing-up duty in the Kelehe household for some while to come.

As much as I am puzzled and a little frightened by the very idea of longdistance road-running, Comrades is one of those great sporting spectacles. I feel about it the way I feel about test cricket: it is so magnificently pointless, so heroically futile that its very existence reminds us that humankind still gloriously struggles on in its senseless pursuit of happiness. We are odd creatures, thankfully, and Comrades shines like a beacon of oddness. No matter what is happening on the front page of the newspaper, I will be assured that all is still right with the world as long as there are 22 men still prepared to wear white flannels and chase a red leather ball for the better part of a week, or as long as there are pot-bellied men and women adorned with helium balloons who believe running from Durban and Maritzburg is a good idea. This is my article of faith: as long as Bruce Fordyce is still running Comrades, we are all going to be OK.