THE SMILE ADORNED her face as it always does. Even when the subject of discussion switched away from her beloved running to the controversy of doping in the sport, Gerda Steyn remained her jovial self.
Of course, South Africa’s most loved road runner spoke with conviction against it. Many athletes would have taken offence at the question, though; they would have deemed it an insinuation. Not so Steyn, who remained unflinching, clearly confident in the knowledge that her incredible achievements on the road are all deserved thanks to hard work, dedication, commitment, and an incredible understanding of the need to take care of herself, alongside her desire to inspire.
She has seen the devastation brought about by the fall of many superstar athletes adored by millions in the past to know just what cheating in sport can do. Still, she understands why some might look at her incredible achievements with a degree of cynicism. After all, aren’t the dopers said to always be ahead of the testers?
Chasing History on the Durban Promenade
It is the eve of the Comrades Marathon, which Steyn is once again expected to win – for a fifth time – and I am talking to the Hollywood Athletics Club superstar at a hotel on the Durban promenade. Win on Sunday and Steyn becomes the second most successful female athlete in Comrades history after Russia’s Elena Nurgalieva, who has won eight times. She will be joint third on the all-time list of Comrades winners, with just Bruce Fordyce and Nurgalieva ahead of her.
She holds the records in both directions of the Ultimate Human Race. Add to that her six titles in the Two Oceans Marathon, and there can be no denying she is the greatest ultra-runner this country has ever had – possibly even better than Bruce Fordyce, who never won the 56km Mother City race.
Unsurprising, then, that there should be those who look at her achievements and wonder.
With the Lance Armstrong story, it has become hard to simply take great sporting successes at face value. Particularly not when there have also been the likes of Ben Johnson, Justin Gatlin, Marion Jones, plus the Russians who broke many a fan’s heart with their positive tests for banned substances.
Steyn gets it.
“For me, doping in athletics and in long-distance running, of course, is the single most awful thing that there is about the whole sport,” she tells me. “It breaks my heart to see it. It grieves me to my bone knowing that I line up on the start, I have lined up, and I probably will in the future be lining up in a field that is just not even.
“Some people are not honest and I can’t imagine, first of all, being an athlete who can stand there with a straight face knowing very well that you are being dishonest. It breaks my heart and it makes me so angry, and I try not to think about it because if you just accept that everyone has got an advantage over you, you’re already going to lose the race.”
An Open Book
That she feels that way is because Steyn believes in honesty and openness.
“I give as much information about myself as I can. I’m open about everything. I’m 110% making sure that if there’s any medication I need to take, that it is legal and I do my best, but unfortunately that is not how everyone’s mindset works.”
She has seen and enjoyed so much love and support from South Africans that Steyn knows just how devastating it would be were she to cheat.
“It breaks my heart knowing that there have been icons in the world that have been racing for years and years and at the end they get caught. The best I do is to be an honest athlete and to be able to show, to be an example to young athletes, that it is actually possible to be a champion without being a cheat. To me, it’s the best I can do from my side.”
And she also knows that to achieve that, she has to train hard. She has given her utmost in preparation for her next assault on the Comrades and is eagerly anticipating Sunday’s race.
“Training has gone really well. I’m very, very satisfied with how it’s gone, especially off the Two Oceans. It’s been really just smooth sailing. It’s been, of course, tough training, but I’m very, very pleased with how everything went.”
Turning Expectation into Fuel
That she will once again step onto the start line at the Durban City Hall as an overwhelming favourite does not put her under pressure at all. Instead, the lass from Bothaville in the Free State embraces her standing and uses it as fuel for her race.
“It’s been like that from very early days in my running career. Especially when you win the race the previous year, it comes with a little bit of expectation when you line up again. But I see it as a huge honour. If someone is expecting me to win, it feels to me that they believe I can do it. And if that is happening in masses, then it just means something. It’s often not that easy to put all that belief in yourself, but when it comes from an external source, it really has a deep meaning. So I see it as a huge support, and I can’t really imagine it in any other way.”
A fifth title will see her join the esteemed company of Arthur Newton, Hardy Ballington, Wally Hayward, and Jack Mekler.
“It means a lot to me to win it year after year. It means to me that it’s also an example that running can be a career. You don’t have to just be a winner once. You can come back and do it again and again, and it just shows that if you do it right, and if you do it with balance and in the right amounts, especially when it comes to the training, that you can show up every year and win every year. And I think that’s important for me too, for the message that it sends out.”
And what is that message?
“That you don’t have to think it’s just a one-off, that maybe you were lucky and it will never happen again. You can do it for longevity. And that to me means a lot as well. It’s made my career so enjoyable. My whole young life has been such a joy to be able to come back and compete year after year. “But of course, it also doesn’t just happen by chance. It takes a lot of specific training, making sure you take care of every single small aspect as well – to stay injury-free, to stay healthy, to take care of your body to be able to do it.”
It is for that reason that Steyn finds doping in the sport so repulsive. When the likes of her put in so much hard work, the knowledge that others are taking shortcuts can only make one angry.
Yet, even with that knowledge, the smile does not leave her face. And you can bet it will be there on Sunday, even during that brutal period after the 60km mark when she has to dig deep into her wells of experience and hard training as she pushes for the finish line.
