{"id":22173,"date":"2013-08-28T01:53:16","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T23:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/makhanya-set-for-overdrive-in-spar-grand-prix\/"},"modified":"2013-08-28T01:53:16","modified_gmt":"2013-08-27T23:53:16","slug":"makhanya-set-for-overdrive-in-spar-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/makhanya-set-for-overdrive-in-spar-grand-prix\/","title":{"rendered":"Makhanya set for overdrive in SPAR Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=14731\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14731\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-14731 \" alt=\"Mapaseka Makhanya after finishing the Cape Town leg of the SPAR Women\u2019s Challenge, at Greenpoint Stadium in March this year.  Photo: Reg Caldecott \" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/bacbe_Makhanya...jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"255\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mapaseka Makhanya after finishing the Cape Town leg of the SPAR Women\u2019s Challenge, at Greenpoint Stadium in March this year.<br \/>Photo: Reg Caldecott<\/p>\n<p>With two SPAR Women\u2019s 10km races to go, Mapaseka Makhanya appears to have one hand on the keys to a new Nissan Micra, which will be awarded to the runner with the most points in the five-race SPAR Grand Prix series.<\/p>\n<p>However, Makhanya will be aware that she still has some work to do to make absolutely sure that the car is hers.<\/p>\n<p>Among those breathing down her neck are last year\u2019s winner, Rene Kalmer, and her sister, Christine. The former was plagued by injury and illness earlier this year, and was not the dominant force she normally is.<\/p>\n<p>She had to withdraw from the Port Elizabeth race due to a calf injury sustained in the Boston Marathon, but says she is back to her best and will try to wrestle the keys away from Makhanya.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy training is going well, and I\u2019m feeling very good,\u201d said Kalmer. \u201cI lost a bit of ground in the Grand Prix because I couldn\u2019t run in Port Elizabeth, but I am aiming for a top-three Grand Prix finish \u2013 and if things go well in Pretoria on Saturday and in Johannesburg in October, who knows what could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/track-runner-becomes-queen-of-the-road\/\" target=\"_blank\">Makhanya currently tops the Grand Prix ladder, with 67 points<\/a>, followed by nearest rival, Christine Kalmer, with 48.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChristine is running very well at the moment,\u201d said her sister. \u201cShe gives me a good go at training, and she really could challenge for the top spot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMapaseka is running very well, so she\u2019s going to be hard to beat, but Christine has gained so much confidence and she\u2019s a very different athlete from what she was a year ago. She really has a good chance of overturning Mapaseka\u2019s Grand Prix lead on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For more SPAR Women\u2019s Challenge news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/spar-womens-challenge\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/4e456_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mapaseka Makhanya after finishing the Cape Town leg of the SPAR Women\u2019s Challenge, at Greenpoint Stadium in March this year.Photo: Reg Caldecott With two SPAR Women\u2019s 10km races to go, Mapaseka Makhanya appears to have one hand on the keys to a new Nissan Micra, which will be awarded to the runner with the most [&hellip;]<\/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-22173","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\/22173","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=22173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}