NEDBANK RUNNING CLUB
Development programme goes the distance with youngsters
Nedbank Running Club focuses on all distances, and 40%-50% of the athletes in the national team have come through the Nedbank Running Club’s development programmes
It takes at least 10 years of development for talented athletes to reach their peak, says Nick Bester, national manager of the Nedbank Running Club, which achieved four firsts in the men’s and women’s ultra-and half-marathons at the 2017 edition of the Two Oceans. "We look for athletic talent in all our communities and we start training youngsters for marathon running from the age of 15," he says. Crossing the finishing line in first place were men’s 56km winner Lungile Gongqa, women’s 56km winner Maryna Damantsevich; men’s 21km half-marathon winner Namakoe Nkhasi; and the women’s half-marathon was won by Irvette van Zyl. "It’s our best achievement ever and it has taken many years of supporting our runners to get here. This is what we work for," says Bester. Gongqa has been part of Nedbank’s training camp for two years. He moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg to train at altitude and lives in the Nedbank Running Club training house for elite athletes near Zoo Lake.
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