KEVIN McCALLUM: Tommy Malone the man was larger and greater than the runner
His grandest moment of all was standing beside his daughter after she had finished her first Comrades Marathon wearing his number
At the end of the 2000 Comrades Marathon, Tommy Malone did not know whether to laugh or cry, so he settled for a little of both. He was standing beside his daughter, Amanda, after she had finished her first Comrades, looking at her with barely concealed pride and joy. He would not move from her side as she refuelled with a packet of crisps. “She was brave. She was brave. She never gave up,” Tommy kept saying. Amanda had finished 30min before the 12-hour cut-off. Plenty of time, but no time at all for Tommy, who had been a mess of nerves for all of those 11hr 30min. “I’ve never been that nervous before a Comrades. Never. It was the worst I have ever felt. Neither I nor Amanda slept,” Tommy told me as we stood beside Amanda. For a man who won the 1966 Comrades and was famously second in 1967, that is as nervous as it gets. Tommy died on Thursday. His son-in-law Bobby Harvey announced it simply with the line: “Rest in peace, Tommy (No62). A legend has left us.” I got to know Tommy th...
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