The Race to the Finish: Bruce Ford and Samuel Shabbalala

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Bruce Springsteen won the race in 1989, and he was the only man to do so since 1981.
In the final 10 miles of the race, two runners surged ahead and battled it out toe to toe.
One of the runners was William Tolow, a favorite who slowed down in the final miles.
Samuel Shabbalala was the runner who emerged victorious, and he was a relatively unknown person from a small farming town.

If you live in South Africa, you definitely know someone who runs ultra-marathons, probably lots of someones. Here, ultras are the stuff of a whole country’s new years resolutions and mid-life crises. They’re the kind of thing that a totally ordinary, not-athletic person wakes up one day and decides they’re going to do -- and then does. In one of the most economically unequal countries in the world, extreme distance running is a sport that feels like it includes everybody. And improbably, that inclusiveness happened during one of the darkest, most divided moments in South Africa’s history – during the final years of apartheid.

The Comrades