Will Gerda Steyn add to Team South Africa’s Paris Olympic medal tally?

At the time of publishing South Africa have won three medals at the ongoing Paris Olympics 2024 in France.

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Tatjana Smith (gold in the women’s 100m breaststroke), Alan Hatherly (bronze in the men’s mountain bike cross country) and the men’s rugby sevens team (bronze) have mounted the podium in Paris to date.

Gerda Steyn part of a three-women SA team

South Africa’s queen of the road, Gerda Steyn, will have her eye on adding to Team South Africa’s medal tally in the women’s marathon.

The race will be held on Sunday, 11 August, a day after the men’s race.

This will be the 11th time that the women’s marathon will be contested at the Olympics.

South Africa will be represented by Gerda Steyn, Irvette van Zyl and Cian Oldknow in the women’s marathon, and by Elroy Gelant and Stephen Mokoka in the men’s marathon.

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A total of 99 women appear on the entry list.

The Olympic women’s marathon record is held by Ethiopia’s Tiki Gelana who set a time of 2:23:07 in winning gold at the London Olympics in 2012.

The women’s marathon world record is held by Tigst Assefa, also of Ethiopia, who stopped the clock in a time of 2:11:53 when winning the Berlin Marathon in September 2023.

Assefa is in the field for the Paris marathon, while Gelana will not take part.

Gerda’s Steyn’s personal best in the marathon stands at 2:25:28.

‘Brigid Kosgei expressed an injury concern’

Meanwhile, Kenya’s former marathon world record holder and Olympic silver medallist Brigid Kosgei has pulled out of the Paris Olympics because of injury.

The 30-year-old Kosgei, who set a then world record 2:14:04 for the women’s marathon in Chicago 2019, was hoping to make her second Olympic appearance after being named alongside defending champion Peres Jepchirchir and former Olympic 5 000m silver medallist Hellen Obiri in the women’s marathon line-up.

The Kenyan marathon team – which also includes the men’s two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge – has been in residential training in the Rift Valley athletics hub of Eldoret for the past two months.

“It’s during one of the regular monitoring sessions that Olympic silver medallist Brigid Kosgei expressed an injury concern to the technical team,” Kenya’s Olympic Committee said in a statement.

“Upon a review by the medical team led by the chief medical officer… Kosgei will not be heading to Paris for her second Olympics.”

The statement did not specify the injury.

Kosgei has been replaced by Sharon Lokedi, the 2022 New York marathon champion who had been named in the travelling reserve squad.