Mphahlele, Tshite push each other to new 1,500m heights in Cape Town

Middle-distance athletes Ryan Mphahlele and Tshepo Tshite clocked the fastest 1,500m times on SA soil on Monday as they pushed each other to new personal bests that are both inside the world championship qualifying standard.

Mphahlele, 24, won the Cape Milers’ race at the Green Point Stadium in 3min 32.90sec, just ahead of 26-year-old Tshite, the national champion in this event, in 3:33.02.

Their times also give them the top two spots on the world list for 2023 so far, with Commonwealth Games champion Oliver Hoare of Australia in third place on 3:36.70.

Mphahlele and Tshite, who has decided to leave the 800m to focus on the longer race, also moved up to second and third on the all-time SA list behind record-holder Johan Cronjé, who set his 3:31.93 mark in Italy.

Their performances saw them leapfrog Johan Landsman (3:33.56), Johan Fourie (3:33.87) and Juan van Deventer (3:34.30). Fourie’s time had previously been the fastest in SA, run in Stellenbosch in 1987.

A year ago the duo showed their potential on the same track in Cape Town with Mphahlele running 3:35.01 and Tshite going 3:35.08. Mphahlele improved to 3:34.66 while finishing 11th at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Hoare’s winning time there was 3:30.12, but at the world championships in Eugene, Oregon in the US, Kenya’s Abel Kipsang won in 3:33.68.

Cronjé took the 1,500m world championship bronze in 2013 in a time of 3:36.83.