The triumph of South Africa’s first Black ultramarathon winner

When Samuel Tshabalala lined up at the start of the Comrades ultramarathon on a chilly morning in May 1989, few people had ever heard of the lanky railway worker in a candy-striped running jersey. 

The race he was about to begin, though, was iconic. Cut off from the international sporting world by boycotts against apartheid, South Africans had become obsessed with this annual 56-mile run between the cities of Pietermaritzburg and Durban. By the late 1980s, it drew thousands of runners, tens of thousands of spectators, and millions of TV viewers each year. 

But never in its 67-year history had the Comrades had a Black winner.

Five hours and 35 minutes after the starting gun popped that morning, Mr. Tshabalala, who died Oct. 2, changed that. His victory catapulted him into the race’s history – but its importance also extended far beyond that. In the violent final days of apartheid, Mr. Tshabalala – along with other elite Black distance runners of his era – became a quiet source of hope for millions. 

“It was something for the Black nation of South Africa to see that one of our Black brothers had done this,” says Andrew Kelehe, an elite Comrades runner who began competing in the race a few years after Mr. Tshabalala’s victory. “We owe a lot to him, because he was the one who showed us what was possible.” 

Mr. Tshabalala grew up herding cattle and sheep near Frankfort, a small farming town slotted into the corn fields and prairie of South Africa’s Free State. He left school in fourth grade, and later found work doing maintenance on the railway line between Frankfort and the nearby town of Tweeling. 

In the afternoons, Mr. Tshabalala often waited hours in Tweeling for a train home. And so, one day, he decided to run the 35-kilometer (22-mile) distance instead. Soon, he became a fixture on the narrow country road between the two towns, a lone figure in rubber rain boots, commuting a near-marathon home from work each afternoon. 

“When you saw him, you knew this man isn’t idling – he can really run,” says Pieter Potgieter, a farmer who noticed Mr. Tshabalala running and helped him join his first running club. 

At the time, South African road running was in the midst of a quantum leap. In the early 1970s, desperate to be allowed to return to the Olympics and other international sporting events, the apartheid government had decided to desegregate running as a kind of feel-good token of racial unity. It was a minor sport at that point, so its integration was a kind of curious sideshow. But over the next decade, fueled by a global jogging boom, road running took off in South Africa. 

Many running clubs desegregated, and formerly white clubs began offering sponsorships to top Black runners like Mr. Tshabalala. In the process, they became one of the first multiracial social spaces many of their runners and spectators ever encountered. 

By the mid-1980s, South Africa’s premier distance race, the 56-mile Comrades, was being broadcast live in its entirety on the country’s single, state-run TV channel. And what audiences saw was a revelation – Black and white runners racing alongside each other, hugging as they crossed the finish line. 

But still, a first-place finish for a Black runner remained elusive. Across the 1980s, the men’s race was dominated by a jovial blond archaeology student named Bruce Fordyce, who won every year between 1981 and 1988. 

“In those years, there were Black ... [winners] of all the other big races,” says Willie Mtolo, an elite distance runner of the era. But Comrades was the country’s most prestigious race, “and that one we didn’t have.” 

Then, in 1989, Mr. Fordyce organized a 100-kilometer (62-mile) world championship, and decided not to compete in the Comrades. His choice flung the field wide open. 

Still, few expected Mr. Tshabalala to take the lead. He had only been racing a few years at that point, and while he was fast, many saw his potential as unpolished. “It was a huge surprise for almost everyone,” says Louis Harmse, a runner who trained with Mr. Tshabalala before the 1989 Comrades. 

“It was a reflection of the adversity of the times that there hadn’t been a Black winner until then,” says Mqondisi Ngcobo, chairperson of the Comrades Marathon Association. “He became a symbol.” 

Mr. Tshabalala’s victory also catapulted him to national fame. TV reporters swarmed to sleepy Frankfort, and sponsors cut big checks (the race itself had no prize money at the time). He used the money to build a house for his family and children in the nearby oil refinery town of Sasolburg.  

Seven months later, on Feb. 2, 1990, South African President F.W. de Klerk made a surprise announcement: He was unbanning the country’s liberation movements, and releasing their leaders from prison. A week later, Nelson Mandela walked out of a Cape Town jail, clutching his wife Winnie’s hand, both of them thrusting a fist toward the sky. 

Four years later, Mr. Mandela would go on to win the country’s first democratic, multiracial elections. But the man who broke the color barrier at the world’s largest ultramarathon almost didn’t live to see that. On Easter weekend in 1991, Mr. Tshabalala was traveling to church when his minibus taxi flipped. Three passengers died, and Mr. Tshabalala went into a coma. 

When he woke up, he had to learn to do everything – including run – all over again. And though he returned to the Comrades the next year, his career as an elite runner was over. 

For the rest of his life, Mr. Tshabalala lived near Sasolburg, working as a cleaner at a rubber factory, raising his children, and training young runners from the area. 

He is survived by his wife Julia, seven of his eight children, and the race his victory helped to transform. 

Today, the Comrades attracts 15,000 to 20,000 runners annually. And in a sport known globally for its lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity, the Comrades has a mostly Black field, many from working-class backgrounds like Mr. Tshabalala’s. 

It became that because of the performances of a pioneering generation of Black runners in the 1980s, says Mr. Ngcobo, the Comrades chair. 

“Sam’s victory was the beginning of a new era.”