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INLSA<\/p>\n
Blind athlete Mandla Zwane, 31, of Nongoma, shows off his career medal haul outside his home. He has finished eight Comrades marathons in a row. Picture: Doctor Ngcobo<\/p>\n
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A blind KwaZulu-Natal man, Mandla Zwane, of Nongoma, completed his eighth consecutive Comrades Marathon on Sunday and said he still had more races to run. <\/p>\n
Zwane, 31, who comes from Nzondwane, was born blind but never let that stop him from keeping up with his brothers, who all loved to run. <\/p>\n
Speaking to The Mercury at his home yesterday, he said he was still recovering from this week\u2019s Comrades, which he ran with a guide at his side. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe weather was a problem because it kept changing a lot but I am fine now,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Zwane was only told by his mother when he was five that he was blind when he kept asking her why he could not go to school with his friends. <\/p>\n
\u201cI suspected this as my siblings usually assisted me. My mother then told me I had to go to a special school when I was eight years old.\u201d <\/p>\n
Attending a \u201cspecial\u201d school had made him feel \u201cat home\u201d because \u201cno one teased us \u2013 we were all equal\u201d. <\/p>\n
At school they played soccer but tied a plastic bag around the ball so they could hear it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI always participated in athletics and nobody could beat me in the long-distance running,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
His love of long-distance running was established and, when he finished school, he continued to train in the afternoons. <\/p>\n
\u201cI would trip and fall because I could not see the routes in Nongoma. The gravel and stones also made it hard. It took about eight months before I knew the routes in my head.\u201d <\/p>\n
After participating in various races, Zwane decided he wanted to run the Comrades Marathon. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is nice to be on the other side now,\u201d he said. He trained for several months before completing his first Comrades in 2005. Since then joining a running club, winning numerous races and bettering his Comrades time every year. <\/p>\n
In 2008 he did the 89km race in eight hours and 19 minutes. Last year his time was 7:57 and this year 7:53. <\/p>\n
He said he intended to finish in under seven hours next year. \u201cI use people\u2019s footsteps to \u2018see\u2019 the route in Comrades. There is no traffic but sometimes I do bump into people, which I cannot avoid.\u201d <\/p>\n
Zwane is well known locally and hailed as a role model for children. <\/p>\n
\u201cI will participate in the Comrades until my body cannot take it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INLSA Blind athlete Mandla Zwane, 31, of Nongoma, shows off his career medal haul outside his home. He has finished eight Comrades marathons in a row. Picture: Doctor Ngcobo A blind KwaZulu-Natal man, Mandla Zwane, of Nongoma, completed his eighth consecutive Comrades Marathon on Sunday and said he still had more races to run. Zwane, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-11199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}