Bay man takes Knysna marathon

[caption id="attachment_212034" align="aligncenter" width="595"] Bluewater Bay’s Mzwanele Maphekula won the Knysna Forest Marathon at the weekend[/caption]

Mzwanele Maphekula won the Knysna Forest Marathon on Saturday, finishing nearly six minutes ahead of second-placed Sandile Ngunuza.

Results: Marathon Men: 1 Mzwanele Maphekula 2:34:09, 2 Sandile Ngunuza 2:49:58, 3 Lindile Tokota 3:41:52 Women: 1 Leilani Schaeffer 3:17:46, 2 Anel van Wyk 3:23:17, 3 Candyce Hall 4:27:47 Half-marathon Men: 1 Nkosinathi Mdan 1:09:52, 2 Michael Bailey 1:11:33, 3 Godwin Heyns 1:12:46 Women: 1 Vicky van der Merwe 1:23:02, 2 Melissa van Rensburg 1:24:18, 3 Anel Terblanche 1:26:57

• Meanwhile, 10 days, five events and one race came to a nail-biting end at the weekend as competitors raced each other and the clock in the final event in the Maserati BIG5 Challenge, the Knysna Forest Half-Marathon.

After completing mountain biking, open-water swimming, trail running and MTB X courses in the previous 10 days, competitors were relieved to have only a 21km run between them and the title of BIG5 Challenge finisher.

In the men’s race, the main duel was between Bradley Weiss and Keegan Cooke for the overall title, with Weiss taking it in an accumulative time of 7:21.05.

In the women’s category, the leader board changed several times during the 10 days of the competition.