Tete Dijana prepares for a hat-trick at the Comrades Marathon

DURBAN - THE smile that Tete Dijana wore during the Comrades Marathon’s elite athletes’ pre-race media conference on Thursday told the story of a champion at ease with the ghosts from his past.

Not that they have been exorcised, rather the two-time champion has come to terms with them and is not going to let them hamstring him from completing a hat-trick of Down Run victories.

The Nedbank Running Club athlete who registered back-to-back victories in 2022 and 2023 has made a remarkable turnaround in the past fortnight to arrive in KwaZulu-Natal his confident and poster-boy self with a special hair-cut for the race as usual.

He looked anything but two weeks ago out in the quaint tourist town of Dullstroom in Mpumalanga, where he cut a forlorn figure despite being in the company of his training mates.

Then, Dijana was edgy, proper unkempt with a growing beard that got him looking much older. He clearly was still suffering from the mental effects of what transpired at last year’s race.

Expected to complete a hat-trick of victories, Dijana bombed out to finish 14th after suffering dizzy spells and cramping so bad he fell and struggled to walk late in the race.

It was one of the saddest sights of the race as his legs wobbled under him, the lad from Mafikeng resembling a newly-born calf striving to find its footing.

“Bra Matshelane, I cannot tell you what happened. But it had something to do with nutrition because I started to feel dizzy from 30ks (kilometers). I even took off the (sun) glasses feeling like they were dim too much.

"I felt myself losing energy but I pushed and pushed but the bunch was gone and I cramped and fell twice,” he recalled the events of last year which left most Comrades lovers heartbroken as the darling of South Africa failed and his Dutch adversary Piet Wiersma sauntered to victory.

The experience has left him badly scarred. So much so that he is struggling to trust.

Of course, he knows that Edward Mothibi and Johannes Makgetla have his back – the duo having checked up on him regularly post last year’s race.

After all, they too also suffered the same dizzy spells he endured. But once bitten, so the saying goes, twice shy and Dijana is not taking any chances.

“Whatever happened was a wake-up call,” he says during our interview on the patio of the house he and his ‘Happy Bunch’ training mates called home for eight weeks.

“I cannot take anything for granted. I know what do, when and how to do. I have to take care of myself and avoid many things Maybe I was negligent with some of the nutrition.”

Not this year. Such has been the hurt from last year that Dijana was keeping his nutrition locked up in the safety of his beloved car – the Kia Picanto that he fondly calls Omphile, having named it after his dearly departed son who died in 2018.

“You see, I keep my stuff in the car. I am not taking any chances. You can’t trust anyone because you are often done dirty by someone next to you. But I cannot say who was responsible for what happened last year, especially because almost all of us suffered, It was only Dan (Matshailwe) and Joseph (Manyedi) who survived,” he said of the duo who finished second and fourth respectively and are no longer part of the Happy Bunch.

It looked weird really, Dijana holding on to his supplements and even preparing them from the boot of his car before locking them back in.

I could not help but imagine he slept with his car keys under his pillow.  Yet such are the after effects of experiences as bad as the one Dijana had.

He never got to truly find out what exactly it was that got him to be dizzy and cramping because his requests for the doping team to check him out fell on deaf ears.

“After that race my temperature was also very, very high,” he tells me.

I saw him at the finish in Scottsville last year and spent a few minutes with him as he sat down to try and regain his senses and he looked the worse for wear.

But because the Southh African Institute for Drug Free Sports (SAIDS) usually tests the top 10 finishers, Dijana was not checked after last year’s race.

“I called Nick (Bester, the Nedbank Running Club manager) and explained everything. There are procedures for these tests though and even when I called doping requesting them to come check me, they took their time.

"I then went to the doctor myself but it was late and he could not find anything. Also, you must know a normal doctor would not check what the doping guys look for. So, I will never know what happened to me last year.”

For months after Comrades, Dijana could not really race and he went to run the Soweto marathon to see if whatever was in his system had been completely flushed out.

“It was very difficult because I had to test and see that whatever messed with me is still in my system. It’s been hard, going to races not to compete but to test and see if I am back to normal.”

He was yet to get back to his normal self even a fortnight ago though: “I still have side effects. At night I still wake up sweating a lot. And there are things I also cannot do now as a man you know. But it’s fine, whoever did it, God will deal with them.”

He, on the other hand, intents ‘dealing with them’ the best way he knows how – by smashing the competition in Sunday’s race and winning a third successive Down Run.

Dijana looked a new man on Thursday compared to the broken soul I visited in Dullstroom two weeks ago. And he sounded rejuvenated – the ghost from last year clearly silenced.

“I am so excited to come and fix what happened last year. I walked and watched the videos (of the race) at home and I heard one of the coaches telling his athletes ‘Tete is walking’. But this year, I am not here to walk. And no, I don't have pressure, they have.”

He will be running like the champion he is, intent on being the first man to reach People’s Park and complete that hat-trick of victories – that smile adorning his face like it did at the pre-race media conference.