The Cape Town Marathon, Africa’s first Gold Label standard marathon, takes place on Sunday, covering 42km with the start and finish in Green Point. Picking men’s and women’s winners is a conundrum best left to the chief contenders to figure out. The flat, fast route dictates that tactics need to be spot-on to launch a bid for line honours. The winners in 2016, Ethiopian Asefa Negewo and Tish Jones, will both be back to defend their titles, but they face much stiffer opposition since the race has been upgraded by the IAAF from the silver status of 12 months ago. Negewo’s 2h 8min 41sec victory set a race record and was also the fastest time for a marathon in SA. In the women’s section, Kenya’s Isabella Ochichi holds the record with 2:30:20 set in 2015, but it is some way off Frith van der Merwe’s 2:27:36 Africa record, which was set in Port Elizabeth in 1989. Due to IAAF protocol that dictates full street closure, an altered route sets up the prospect for another quick time now that t...
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