Michaela ‘Chaeli’ Mycroft, 30, is on course to obtain her green number after finishing the 98th edition of the Comrades Marathon with seconds to spare on Sunday.
Chaeli, a wheelchair athlete living with cerebral palsy, braved the cold, wind, and hot weather from Pietermaritzburg to Durban to claim her seventh Comrades finish.
Chaeli, who founded the Chaeli Campaign with her mother Zelda Mycroft, served legal papers on the Comrades Marathon in 2016 because their rules stated no wheelchairs or mechanical devices. After two months and then threatening to take them to the Equality Court, they relented.
Also in 2016, Chaeli and another woman, Anita Engelbrecht, who is also an assisted athlete, were the first two wheelchair athletes to participate and finish the Comrades.
“Chaeli is the first wheelchair athlete in the event’s history to finish the Comrades and also the first to receive a back-to-back medal. This means she did that in 2016 and 2017,” Mycroft said.
She said Chaeli has competed in every marathon since then, but in 2019, she did not finish after missing the halfway cut-off in Drummond.
On Sunday, Chaeli finished her seventh Comrades, making it a total of seven finishes.
“On Sunday, she had two running partners with her. Her long-term running partner, Chantal Fisher. This was the fourth Comrades that Chantal has done with Chaeli. And the first time with Jerome Swartz. This was his ninth Comrades.
“Jerome has already said that he wants to run with Chaeli next year when he runs to get his green number,” Mycroft said.
“Chaeli is set on getting her green number because we have fought long and hard for the inclusion of wheelchair athletes in the Comrades. The only way for her to be assured of it being a permanent thing is for her to get her green number. So it is her goal to get her green number in 2028.”
Mycroft explained that wheelchair athletes started at 5am, 45 minutes ahead of the field. So they had two hours in the dark, and when you leave Maritzburg, the temperatures dip when you go out into the countryside.
She said for Chaeli, Sunday’s down run alternated between freezing and very hot.
“The first two hours were extremely cold, and then hot and windy, and the first half was amazing. They were hoping for a bronze, and in the first half of the marathon, up to Bothas Hill, they were ahead of schedule. Then Bothas Hill, they did more than 11 minutes a kilometre, so that set them back,” Mycroft said.
“Then the last half, where they were hoping to go faster, it was nine minutes a kilometre. This meant they had to do the last five kilometres in 30 minutes.
“They came in with 24 seconds to spare. It was down to the wire.”
Back: Jerome Swartz, Chantal Fisher, Marissa Groenewald and Shaun Black.
Front: Chaeli Mycroft and Hayden Driemeyer.
Mycroft, who sees herself as the archivist for wheelchair inclusion, said she has the history of all the wheelchair athletes since 2016.
“There are only seven of them. Two self-propelled wheelchair athletes and five assisted athletes have participated in the last nine years,” Mycroft said.
“Chaeli is the only wheelchair athlete to have done them all.”
Chaeli is also an author and activist. In 2023, she received the Forbes Woman Africa Young Achievers Award.
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