Why Comrades champion Dijana did not share his bottle with 'intruder' Wiersma

Would you give your enemy a gun for him to shoot you?

The big question as the buildup to this year’s Comrades Marathon begins in earnest with runners going into the high-mileage season is whether flying Dutchman Piet Wiersma will be back to race the up run and succeed in causing the upset he nearly pulled off last year.

Nedbank Running Club manager Nick Bester is yet to say which internationals he will be bringing over for the June 9 race. And there is every possibility the 1991 Comrades winner will hold his cards close to his chest like he did last time around and unleash ‘an intruder’ at the last minute.

Besides Tete Dijana and Gerda Steyn breaking long-standing down run records, the lingering memory from the 2023 edition is the enthralling battle that Wiersma’s presence created. And many running enthusiasts are still talking about how Dijana and Edward Mothibi ‘ganged up’ against Wiersma during the race.

Who can forget how the duo from Mafikeng refused to share their drinks with Wiersma despite them all being resplendent in the famous green colours of Nedbank Running Club?

I remember getting a call from my brother who thought I was in the media truck following the leaders: “What’s happening bro? Why are those guys not sharing with their white teammate?” he asked, clearly puzzled by what he was watching on the telly evident.

I was not in the truck but was following particular runners with a fellow journalist from America and thus had no idea what he was talking about. I later saw the clip of that incident though.

An uninformed observer would have taken that to be racist, two darkies ganging up against a mlungu. But those of us in the know would have understood that Nedbank Running Club is a huge institution with different branches and varying training groups and would not have been overly surprised by the duo’s actions.

Ahead of their going into camp this year, Dijana and Mothibi were hosted by Midrand Striders to share their running stories and expertise at the Ultimate Human Race. And it was not surprising that the runners were keen to understand what went on last year.

Dijana was candid: “Would you give your enemy a gun to shoot you?”

The Striders understood.

“What happened there was that we grabbed our bottles and he was not there. It was a crucial time in the race, and you cannot give anyone a gun to kill you,” Dijana explained “They usually say that when you are using ‘nyaope’ – energy drinks in running parlance – for the first time, it takes you very high. So, I am the one who said to Slender (Mothibi), ‘Don’t give him. Where is his bottle?’ I mean it took us two hours to mix ours and earlier on I saw him (Mothibi) sharing his bottle with him (Wiersma). Would you give your enemy a gun to shoot you?”

That time in the race, it was crucial that they used whatever advantage they could get to rid themselves of the newcomer who was threatening to end South Africa’s domination of the Ultimate Human Race.

“Not this time. I said ’No, it is a crucial time’. I drank mine and threw it away as far as possible after drinking. I could see Slender wanted to share, but I said to him ‘ou buti’ (old brother) throw it away. It was a crucial time, unless he (Mothibi) wanted the Comrades (title) to go to the Netherlands.”

Despite being denied key energy for the race, Wiersma stubbornly refused to be left behind and stayed in contention.

“Later on, there was an opportunity that God gave me. I saw he (Wiersma) was struggling. Slender was behind and I tried to wait for Slender, but I said this guy is behind and if I wait for Slender, we are going to be in trouble. I left.”

It made for one of the greatest finishes in Comrades' history as all three athletes ran below the previous 5:18:19 record that was set by David Gatebe in 2016. The last few moments of the race gave many South Africans heart palpitations as Wiersma threatened to pull the proverbial championship rug from underneath Dijana’s feet.

“I was tired. Remember I used a lot of energy when I broke away from them. I wanted to relax a little, but I could see he was coming strong. Going into the stadium I thought the finish was just around the corner, but there were still some jika-jikas (twists and turns). So, when I looked behind me and saw him coming on strong, I said ‘this one is never ever going to catch me. I’d rather die there at the end’. And I sprinted away to win.”

The duo had picked up on the Wiersma threat early in the race.

“During the race, we managed to break, not knowing we had an intruder. But we were so confident, we wrote him off. We felt maybe he would take fourth because we believed we would get the top three (himself, Mothibi and Joseph Manyedi).”

Having dropped the Japanese Jo Fukuda who was said to be the favourite, the Happy Bunch – as the trio that is trained by Dave Adams along with their teammates Dan Matshailwe, Johannes Makgetla, Wayne Spies and the rose among the thorns Galaletsang Mekgoe, are known – thought they were en route to dominating the podium.

But Wiersma just would not go away.

“He broke away and I said to the captain (Slender) ‘this guy is going’ and he told me to go check him. I also wanted to relax in the bunch, but I had to go check him and I tried to slow him down so my guys could catch up. I realised we had a lot of work to do if we were to drop him. We worked hard, we ran, we drank waters, and he was drinking water too. And then we came to the nyaope bottles and he did not have his and there was no way we were going to share ours with him.”

In the end, Dijana registered a fantastic victory that saw him completing a rare back-to-back down run double. He will be out to win his first up run of which Mothibi is the defending champion.

They’d be happy if one of them wins, but they know that Wiersma looms large as a big threat.