Durban’s Challenor posts Olympic qualifying time
Durban runner Jenna Challenor has recorded a career best marathon finish to qualify for the Rio Olympics later this year.
Challenor finished the Nagoya Marathon in Japan in 2 hours, 37 minutes and nine seconds last weekend. Incredibly, it was just her third ever marathon and her finish was four and a half minutes faster than her previous best.
Her finish time saw her qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics, but she will have to wait until May to find out if she has made the Olympic team.
Speaking exclusively to East Coast Radio Sportswave this week, Challenor said she had a blast in Japan in comparison to her previous marathon in Prague – which she ran with an injury.
“I loved absolutely everything about the marathon. My main goal was to run a personal best and the fastest time I could but my second goal was to love the marathon again,” Challenor said.
“When I ran the Prague Marathon last year, I ran on an injury and it was a really sore, hard experience and actually scarred me a bit. So I went to Japan with the hope of running a marathon and loving it and I did just that.”
As it stands, Challenor lies second on the South African women’s marathon rankings with her finish in Nagoya.
Three South African ladies will go to the Olympics to run in the games. However a few more local runners are yet to post marathon times ahead of the global showpiece. Those runners have until the end of April to post a qualifying time.
Challenor won’t be able to run another race to better her time and must now wait until the cut-off to find out if she will go to the Olympics.
“I think they will select a squad but I’m not 100 hundred percent sure if they will select a squad of four, five or six people. Obviously you can get injured so they have to select a bigger squad than the three that will go.”
“The question is, do you train as if you’re going to Rio or do you carry on as per usual? Personally, whether I go to Rio or not, I’m definitely running another marathon in August or September.”
In the meantime, Challenor will continue training for the Olympics and she believes she can post a faster time at the Games.
“It would be an absolute honour to run in the Olympic Games and that in itself is a massive dream. I would go out there to run as fast as I could possibly run and to make my country proud. I believe I’ve got a lot more in the tank,” Challenor said.
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