Dispute over Mandela Marathon

UMgungundlovu District Municipality has distanced itself from any involvement in the Nelson Mandela Marathon that is set to take place on August 7.

This comes after the news that the KZN Athletics has taken over as the organisers of the historic race.

Accusing KZN Athletics of hijacking the race, uMgungundlovu District Municipality, in a statement released on Monday, said it has distanced itself from any association with the Mandela Marathon.

The matter arose from a court case involving a dispute between two clubs, who were the organisers of the race, two years ago.

“The two clubs who didn’t see eye to eye and decided to take the matter to court.

“The [Nelson Mandela Foundation] then gave an instruction for the case to move out of court.

“The athletics association then said these two clubs can’t organise the race while there’s still a pending case.

“The problem was that the clubs didn’t have funds to pay their lawyers to withdraw the case.

“The KZN Athletics then seized the opportunity and made it seem like the race was theirs, just because of this pending case,” said uMgungundlovu District Municipality spokesperson Brian Zuma.

He said the new organisers are being stubborn, wanting the race to go on, even though the municipality thinks it shouldn’t.

“There was supposed to be no race until the court case is resolved. We don’t support this. That is why we have distanced ourselves from the race,” said Zuma.

He added that the court case dates back two years, and it was a coincidence that during this period engagements were not allowed due to Covid-19.

Meanwhile, KZN Athletics vice-president and spokesperson Mandla Mngomezulu said the organisation decided to step in and take over the event after conflicts with other clubs threatened to halt the historic race from going forward.

“Any athletics event in KwaZulu-Natal belongs to KZN Athletics. We are the ones who give clubs rights to organise and host their events through submitting applications and proposed dates.

“We sometimes deny them a proposed date and give them another date which we deem suitable.

“Our constitution gives KZN Athletics the right to organise events through clubs. If the clubs are not in good standing, KZN Athletics has the right to continue with the event.

“This is what is happening with the Mandela Marathon. The two clubs that were the previous organisers are currently not in good standing, since they took KZN Athletics to court, and that case has not been withdrawn,” said Mngomezulu.

He added that they decided that the event must go on and used their rights to organise it.

“It is going to be a 21km which will start in Hilton and 10km will start at the Howick stadium.

“Both races will end at the Nelson Mandela Capture Site.”

However, there will be no 42km race this year.

“We couldn’t do the 42km because it is close to the Comrades Marathon. We are anticipating that our athletes will be preparing for the Comrades Marathon,” Mngomezulu said.

He added that the race will still be called the Nelson Mandela Marathon and that the Nelson Mandela Foundation has given them permission to use the logo and the name.

“Preparations are in place and entries have been opened. Things are going well, people are excited about the event and we are happy about it. We want to promise athletes a good, organised event.

“We have also put up good prize money. We are busy printing T-Shirts and medals will handed out. Athletes must come and enjoy the event. They must remember that we are honouring our late Nelson Mandela.”

The Nelson Mandela Foundation’s head of leadership development, Verne Harris, said as a foundation they don’t want to own everything related to Madiba.

“There was a dispute involving who should be partners. We convened meetings months ago in Johannesburg with all the various organisations interested in the event.

“We’ve passed it over and indicated that we are available to provide support when necessary.

“We are not one of the anchor partners anymore. We are comfortable with Madiba’s name being used in relation to the walk and run moving forward.

“We have indicated that our primary interest is ensuring that we don’t have institutional partners that are in conflict with one another and fighting over who is responsible for what. If there are issues between partners, they must resolve them,” he said.

“We want to promise athletes a good, organised event. We have also put up good prize money. We are busy printing T-Shirts and medals will be handed out. Athletes must come and enjoy the event. They must remember that we are honouring our late Nelson Mandela.”