Gerda Steyn has conquered some of the world’s most gruelling ultramarathons, but almost a year after finishing third in the Soweto Marathon, there is still one finish line she cannot reach: payment of her R90,000 prize money.
The two-time Olympian says she has yet to receive a cent for her performance at the 30th African Bank Soweto Marathon on 29 November 2025. Meaningful communication from the organisers has also been conspicuously absent.
“It’s almost exactly a year later, and there has been absolutely no communication about payments, and no payments have been made. I don’t even know if this is still something we are talking about,” Steyn told reporters at the finish
The five-time Comrades Marathon and seven-time Two Oceans Marathon champion chose to support the People’s Race despite the difficulties confronting the event.
After the Cape Town Marathon was cancelled because of bad weather on 19 October 2025, she still wanted to compete in a home marathon.
“I wanted to support them. I knew the race was not in a good position, but I still wanted to support them,” she said.
Her faith in the event has since turned to disappointment.
“When I look back 12 months later and see how we have almost been forgotten, it is incredibly disappointing,” Steyn said.
She is not alone. Podium finishers and elite athletes remain unpaid. Men’s winner Joseph Seutloali, her Hollywood Athletics Club teammate, is still owed a substantial R250,000 as part of a wider prize-money crisis involving approximately R1.2 million.
The dispute has placed the race’s management, financial controls and accountability under intense scrutiny.
For Steyn, the consequences extend far beyond the money she is owed.
“We have such a community. When I look at the running community, we stand together. We support everything and everyone. We are proudly South African,” she said.
“This is not good for the community.”
The People’s Race was built on community pride and national unity. But how can an event retain athletes’ trust when its champions are still waiting for prize money they have earned?
Title sponsor African Bank has confirmed that it fulfilled all its contractual obligations and transferred all sponsorship rights fees and prize money to the organisers, the Soweto Marathon NPO, some time ago.
The NPO initially blamed the delays on outstanding doping test results. However, the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) revealed that the results had been finalised and delivered by mid-January 2026.
Since then, NPO spokesperson Jabu Mbuli and the organising committee have ceased all communication and effectively disappeared from view.
A glimmer of hope emerged in July 2026 when Central Gauteng Athletics (CGA) announced that limited funds from the Gauteng Sports Confederation’s 2024 allocation would be used to make partial payments to the beleaguered athletes.
The deepening crisis prompted Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie to intervene, strongly condemning the organisers and announcing an official government takeover of the event.
His department undertook to pay the outstanding prize money owed to the 2025 winners directly through government channels and to oversee the organisation of the 2026 race.
The intervention goes further. The minister has initiated steps to pursue allegations of criminal fraud and theft against the NPO organisers through the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). The state is also seeking to permanently bar the NPO’s board and management from sports administration.
Despite the government’s plans, administrative obstacles remain. Provincial athletics bodies such as CGA initially cautioned against a direct political takeover of a sporting event. They withheld official sanctioning of the race until the NPO’s structural governance failures had been fully addressed.
For champions such as Steyn and Seutloali, who push their bodies to the limit to reach the finish line, the saga has become an administrative nightmare that threatens to tarnish the very soul of South African athletics.
