Aleksei Tolstenko and Kerry-Ann Marshall have won the Ultra Trail Cape Town (UTCT) hundred miles (164 kilometres, 7.516m+) in South-Africa. The UTCT is a Hardrock 100 Qualifier.
Directly from the start the local runners Anele Bans and Matthew Bouch took the lead and passed Signal Hill, the first timing point, together. Behind them Jerome Vanderschaeghe (Belgium), followed in the company of Tolstenko, Gabriel Kriel and Christiaan Greying (both South-Africa). It was the last one, leading the race when the runners passed Kloof Nek (15k), with Tolstenko and Bouch on his heels.
At Table Mountain, 27 kilometres into the race, the three were only separated by seconds, while Vanderschaeghe comfortably followed in fourth position.
Bouch attacks
Bouch was the first one to attack. Only 37 kilometres into the race, at Llandudno, he dropped Tolstenko and Greyling and went off on his own; opening up a gap of a couple of minutes. Yet, the South African ultra runner wasn’t able to shake off Tolstenko for good. Even more so, when the ultra runners approached Rocket Road, 52 kilometres into the race, it was the Adidas Terrex runner who was in the lead, and slowly started to run away from Bouch.
Behind the two front runners Vanderschaeghe started to chase down Greyling. It took the Belgium Asics runner 63 kilometres, but at Silvermine he passed the South African veteran. Fifty kilometres later, Greyling, number two of the Mountain Ultra Trail by UTMB earlier this year, dropped out after suffering with stomach cramps and diarrhea. “My first Did Not Finish in my life”, he said later on his Instagram. “At Noordhoek I couldn’t keep anything down and after multiple times vomiting and cramping I made the rather easy decision that it is not safe to continue. The UTCT was the first race to break me, or maybe it was a small amount of bacteria in my system.
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Birthday victory
In the meantime nothing changed up front. Tolstenko kept Bouch behind him and Bouch kept Vanderschaeghe behind him. In the end Tolstenko crossed the line, on his birthday, in 21 hours, 6 minutes and 54 minutes; more than 45 minutes faster than his winning time of last year: “I’m super happy”, he said in his finish line interview. “This is an amazing place for me, a beautiful race, beautiful people. I like this place, I like to come here.”
“I’m super stoked to be second here”, Bouch said after crossing the line in 22:33:19. “I didn’t finish here last year, so this is a bit of redemption. Things came together. The night was perfect; not a breath of wind and all the volunteers on the course really kept me going.” Vanderschaeghe finished third in 22:33:19.
Late victory for Marshall
In the women’s race Naomi Brand (South Africa) was leading for more than 22 hours, but with a bit more than 3 hours to go, her compatriot Kerry-Ann Marshall passed her. And where Brand was struggling, Marshall still looked strong. She finished in 25 hours, 23 minutes and 2 seconds.”I thought it was Naomi’s day”, Marshall admitted at the finish: “She set the pace from the start and the gap was just growing. I kept telling myself: ‘My knees don’t hurt’. I just tried to keep the gap small. When they told me I got a lot of time back on Naomi, my mind started to believe.”
Brand, held on to second place, taking revanche for UTMB, where she finished forty-fourth. The Flat Rock Endurance athlete finished in 26:09:16. The third place was for Cornelia Oswald (Austria) in 29:16:12.
Photo: Zac Zinn / World Trail Majors
