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Major blow for road running
18/09/2007 22:07 - (SA)
Sarel van der Walt , Beeld
Pretoria - South African road running was dealt a huge blow on Tuesday when the Harmony Gold mining company announced it would no longer sponsor professional athletes.
The company will also not sponsor the cost of medals and trophies to be handed to runners taking part in South Africa's top ultra-marathons, the Comrades and the Two Oceans.
Harmony, who has been under financial pressure recently, will continue to be involved at amateur level and will still support the development projects in which it is involved.
Russia's Leonid Shvetsov, who broke Bruce Fordyce's 21-year-old Comrades down-run record this year, former Olympic Games marathon champion Josiah Thugwane and Willie Mtolo, a former winner of the New York marathon and the Comrades, are among the runners who have competed in Harmony colours.
A number of athletes from other Africa countries also ran for Harmony during the past few years.
A Harmony spokesperson said on Tuesday the decision to scale down was part of the company's cost-cutting programme.
"In the nearly seven years that we have been involved in road running, Harmony spent about R18m. That is more than R2m per year and that's a lot of money," she said.
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Rugby
