{"id":18672,"date":"2013-03-11T14:49:28","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T12:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/olympic-marathoner-anchors-night-relay-record\/"},"modified":"2013-03-11T14:49:28","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T12:49:28","slug":"olympic-marathoner-anchors-night-relay-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/olympic-marathoner-anchors-night-relay-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic marathoner anchors night relay record"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t \"Fifth<\/a><\/p>\n

Fifth runner Esau Mariano takes a record-breaking win for Uitenhage\u2019s Gamble Pharmacy in the first race of the Investec Night Relay series at the North End Lake in Port Elizabeth on Thursday. Photo: Sport Action Photography<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s London Olympics marathoner Lusapho April helped defending champions Gamble Pharmacy smash their 21km course record by more than two-and-a-half minutes in the opening race of the Investec Night Relay series in Port Elizabeth on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Uitenhage-born April set a blistering pace of just over three minutes per kilometre on the first lap around the North End Lake to edge his five-man team towards victory and a new record time of 1 hour 4 minutes and 56 seconds.<\/p>\n

NSRC Warriors chased hard for the runner-up spot, finishing in a respectable 1 hour 10 minutes and 10 seconds, with the NMMU Young Guns just 10 seconds further back in third.<\/p>\n

The title sponsor\u2019s Investec 3 team proved too strong for their opposition in the mixed category, coming home in a time of 1 hour 18 minutes and 27 seconds. Their nearest rivals were Ernst Young and Aspen in second and third respectively.<\/p>\n

It was also one for the books in the walking category, with the Rawstron family team setting a record pace of 1 hour 27 minutes and 52 seconds on the 12.6km course.<\/p>\n

Race organiser Michael Zoetmulder of Zports said it was a great start to the 2013 series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very privileged to have our former national marathon champion here.<\/p>\n

\u201cLusapho was also the first South African home at the London Olympic marathon last year. It\u2019s great to have athletes of this calibre supporting our local events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zoetmulder said he expected entry figures for corporate teams to double ahead of the second race on April 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of companies indicated that they were unable to make the March event but will be entering multiple teams for next month\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause each lap is just 4.2km, the event is achievable for even social runners and walkers.\u201d<\/p>\n

With lucky draw prizes, live entertainment, food stalls and a beer garden adding to the festival atmosphere, he said the series provided a healthy alternative networking opportunity for businesses in the metro.<\/p>\n

The three-race series culminates on May 2.<\/p>\n

Visit www.investecnightrelay.co.za for full results and event details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifth runner Esau Mariano takes a record-breaking win for Uitenhage\u2019s Gamble Pharmacy in the first race of the Investec Night Relay series at the North End Lake in Port Elizabeth on Thursday. Photo: Sport Action Photography South Africa\u2019s London Olympics marathoner Lusapho April helped defending champions Gamble Pharmacy smash their 21km course record by more […]<\/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":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-18672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","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\/18672","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=18672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}