BARRIER-BREAKING ULTRA RUNNER GABASHANE HAS DIED

By Riël Hauman
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

Gabashane (Vincent) Rakabaele, the best distance runner to come out of the tiny African kingdom of Lesotho, died on an unspecified date in 2009. Rakabaele, born on 3 September 1949, was the first black athlete to win an official Comrades Marathon medal.

Apart from his barrier-breaking effort in the 1975 Comrades, Rakabaele will be best remembered for his two magnificent victories in South Africa’s other major ultramarathon, Cape Town’s Two Oceans Marathon over 56 km. Like the Comrades, this race was opened to all race groups in 1975. The next year Rakabaele, after one of the most exciting head-to-head clashes in the history of the race, won in a course record 3:18:05 to beat Alan Robb by a mere 6 seconds.

In 1977 Rakabaele, not fully prepared, finished 43rd, but in 1978 he was second to Brian Chamberlain and in 1979 won for the second time to regain the record Chamberlain (3:15:22) had taken from him in 1977. His time was 3:08:56 and he won by almost 10 minutes.

Rakabaele’s record stood until 1981 when, after a dramatic tussle between him and Johnny Halberstadt, the latter clocked 3:05:37 to beat the Lesotho runner by 3 min 40 sec. Nine years later Rakabaele won the veterans (masters) title in 3:18:10.

Before 1975 the country’s apartheid policies forbade competition between white and black athletes, unless the government gave the event “multi-national” status. Black runners had long participated unofficially in the Comrades, South Africa’s biggest ultramarathon, but in 1975 they could do so officially for the first time. It was the 50th running of the race, and women were also given official status for the first time. Rakabaele finished 20th in 6:27 (in those days the times of runners outside the top ten were recorded only in full minutes).

In 1976 he was eighth and this started speculation that he could become the first black winner of the race. However, this was not to be and the best he could do was fourth in 1977 in 6:03:50 – almost 17 minutes behind Robb.

Rakabaele also won the SA Marathon in 1976, 1979 and 1982. His 2:12:27 in Port Elizabeth in 1979, beating Halberstadt, gave him 21st position on the world list for the year (and third best African behind Ethiopian Kebede Balcha and Halberstadt).

In 1982 he won the Interprovincial Marathon, again in Port Elizabeth, in a career best 2:11:44. This time he was 20th on the world list, once more the third best runner on the continent (behind Tanzanian Juma Ikangaa and Kenya’s Jospeh Nzau).

Rakabaele ran most of his races in South Africa, usually representing one of the big gold mining clubs that supported elite black runners during the glory days of South African road racing from the late seventies to the early nineties.

Among his other major marathon wins were the Peninsula (1980), Foot of Africa (‘80, ‘82, ‘83), Winelands (‘79) and Port Elizabeth City (‘83).
Rakabaele twice represented Lesotho in the Olympic Marathon. In 1980 he was 36th in 2:23:29 and four years later 61st in 2:32:15.

Information about the date and cause of his death is unclear. He would have been 60 last September. He is buried at Ha Rakabaele in Lesotho.

 

 

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