Body of runner's son found

2004-12-26 17:03

Kimberley - The body of Ian Syster's two-month-old son was found on Sunday, after the road running champion drove his car off a bridge on the Orange River on Saturday.

Merzian Syster's body was found by onlookers about 300m from the scene of the accident, police spokesperson Hendrik Swart said.

On Sunday police divers were searching the river for the baby, but the family had called in the help of a clairvoyant to find him, former coach Gert Thys said.

"Just before 12:00 on Sunday she pointed out a spot where some local kids were swimming and fishing, one of the boys spotted what he thought was a white rock, the spiritualist sent them back to make sure and they found the baby stuck under the rocks," Thys said.

He said the whole family were on the banks when the baby's body was recovered.

Road-runner Ian Syster, 28, was killed in the early hours of Christmas morning when he lost control of his BMW outside Keimoes in the Northern Cape. His child Merzian was in the car with him.

"Ian was on the way to Cape Town to spend some time with his family after we had an argument on Christmas Eve. We (had) decided to spend some time apart and he was going to discuss matters with his family," said his distraught girlfriend, Maritza Tietre.

Thys, a national marathon record holder himself, told Sapa the runner's family in Prince Albert had recently asked him to talk to Ian to get his career back on track.

"Things were not well between Ian and his girlfriend, he was young and his life was not heading into the right direction," he said.

"We have lost a great talent, he could have been the greatest athlete this country had known", he lamented.

Syster won the last national marathon championships in Durban (2001) as an unannounced individual. He went on to make his presence felt at international level, with his selection to the national team, a fifth-place finish in the 2002 London Marathon, and a ninth-place in the 2003 race, one place behind Hendrik Ramaala.

He won the Beijing Marathon in 2002, but failed to finish it in 2003 and was also unable to make it to the finish line at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

Syster is the second elite athlete to die in mysterious circumstance this year. Olympic marathon gold medallist Josia Thugwane's training partner, Josia Bhembe, was killed earlier this year in what was believed to be a suicide following a family dispute.

- SAPA