Leonid shvetsov biography of albert

MY COMRADES STORY BY ALLAN VILLIER #9762

“16 June 2007: An overweight, unhealthy me woke up on the couch after an early birthday party (with a particularly sore head), just in time to see Leonid Shvetsov break the record; and that’s where I stayed until 17h30 when the gun went off to signal the end of the race.

Leonid shvetsov biography of albert

I hadn’t watched the Comrades Marathon since I was a child, when my mom would not allow anything else on the television all day.

Amongst all the excitement and worry, joy and tears, triumph and defeat that makes Comrades the unbelievable experience that it is, was a double amputee from England, named Richard Whitehead, who without legs came to run Comrades.

The presenter made such a simple statement after she interviewed him, “If someone with no legs can do this race, you have no excuse!”. It was more than a decade later that I would stand on the start line, but that’s where the seed was planted.

Fast forward 9 years to April 2016; I had just made it to the top of a si