Sometime this week I read an article in one of the local online news outlets quoting Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip as saying “the Ironman 70.3 world championship event is no longer a Bay initiative, it is now a South African event”.
Unfortunately, the news outlet that carried this statement has a much smaller reach than this newspaper and many will have missed it.
That statement, in my view, is significant and important for all of us to internalise because the implications are huge.
Just yesterday, this paper’s front page carried a report about a popular US television star who is heading to SA to compete in the Ironman, but most importantly to carry out charitable initiatives that will benefit some of the neediest communities.
To make my point, I will take you back to 2017 when four friends and I ventured out to race Challenge Regensburg in Germany.
The five of us were recipients of complimentary race entries and we used the opportunity to raise awareness and funds for the Smile Foundation.
The race organiser had earlier put out a call to the community of Regensburg for anyone with spare room to take in one or more of us for the duration of our stay in that country.
I believe European countries are good at rolling out homestay programmes where the visiting athletes get to stay with a family and in exchange may contribute to groceries, fuel or simply give back in kind.We were lucky, a certain Dr Michael Brunner, a German national married to an Iranian women, happened to be home alone that week and offered to take all five of us into his home.
We got so much love from the doc and his friends that we even forgot we were in a foreign country.
It was during this stay that a seed was planted.
We invited the good doctor to bring his family to SA – and specifically Nelson Mandela Bay – and this proposed trip would coincide with the Ironman 70.3 World Championship.
As you read this column, the doctor, his wife and two kids are in the county en route to the Eastern Cape via Johannesburg.
Doc will finally realise his wish – to walk the land of Madiba – hence his final stop before the Bay will be in Qunu.
The event next week was a key catalyst for this family to make the trip to SA.
There are thousands more with similar stories. The details might differ, but one thing is common – the Ironman 70.3 has brought them to SA.
Then there is the Canadian triathlete couple of Junior Tremblay and his wife, Diane Allard, both of whom I met in Chattanooga, US last year.
This couple and their friends are avid travelling triathletes who up to now had never been to Africa.
This week, Junior landed in Cape Town and in no time, he posted this on his Facebook page: “I thought South Africa was a poor country, they even have a Ferrari dealer.”
Thousands more people like Junior now have an opportunity to see SA thanks to the championship.
So yes, with this event now belonging to all South Africans what we do with it will leave a lasting impression about this country – Molo Nelson Mandela Bay!