Bruce Noel Stevenson Fordyce (born 3 December 1955 in Hong Kong) is a South African marathon and ultramarathon athlete. He is best known for having won the South African

Comrades Marathon The Comrades Marathon is an ultramarathon of approximately which is run annually in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg. It is the world's largest and oldest ultramarathon race. The direc ...

a record nine times, of which eight wins were consecutive. He also won the London to Brighton Ultramarathon three years in a row. He is the former world record holder over 50 miles and the former world record holder over 100 km.

Early life and education

Born in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

to Evan Noel and Nancy Ann (Née Stevenson), Fordyce moved with his family to

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

when he was 13 years old. He completed his school career at Woodmead High School and subsequently attended the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

, where he obtained his

Bachelor of Arts degree Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in 1977 and his Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in 1979. During this time he was also a member of the university's anti-apartheid Student Representative Council as well as a committee member of the Wits Athletic Club. He married Gillian Leigh (Née Bruce)

Comrades Marathon

In 1977, when Fordyce first ran the

, he placed 43rd out of 1,678 entries. He placed 14th in 1978, 3rd in 1979, 2nd in 1980, and was the winner for an unprecedented eight consecutive years from 1981 to 1988; he won it again in 1990. No other runner in the history of the Comrades has achieved this feat. Fordyce also held the record time for the "up" run (

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

to Pietermaritzburg) and his record of 5:24:07 for the "down" run (Pietermaritzburg to Durban) stood for 21 years from 1986 until it was broken in 2007 by Russia's Leonid Shvetsov. He has thus completed 30 Comrades Marathons, including the remarkable result of posting identical times in 1985 and 1987. In 2011 he aimed for a silver medal, but missed this by 31 seconds (finishing time of 7 hours 30 minutes 31 seconds).

London to Brighton Ultramarathon

Fordyce won the London to Brighton ultramarathon 3 years running from 1981 to 1983.

World record holder

Fordyce was the world record holder over 50 miles from 1983, when he covered the distance in 4hr 50min 51sec during the 53m 1082yds London to Brighton ultramarathon until the record was broken by Jim Walmsley on 5 May 2019. Fordyce holds the 50-mile record for the United States All Comers Race

Political activism

Fordyce was strongly anti-apartheid. On his first victory race in 1981 he wore a black armband to protest against the 20th anniversary celebrations of the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

republic attracting boos and even some rotten tomatoes thrown by a fellow runner. Fordyce has claimed this protest as "one of the proudest moments in my life".

Books, journalism and motivational speaker

In addition to having written two books about the Comrades Marathon, Fordyce was also a sports columnist for various newspapers and magazines, and a

SABC The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the public broadcaster in South Africa, and provides 19 radio stations ( AM/ FM) as well as six television broadcasts to the general public. It is one of the largest of South Africa's stat ...

television commentator for the 2014 event. He is also a motivational speaker and the chief executive officer of the South African Sports Trust. Fordyce also introduced the

parkrun Parkrun (stylised as parkrun) is a collection of events for walkers, runners and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across six continents. Junior Parkrun (stylised as junior parkrun) ...

running events to South Africa. This is a collection of free-entry weekly

5k run The 5K run is a long-distance road running competition over a distance of . Also referred to as the 5K road race, 5 km, or simply 5K, it is the shortest of the most common road running distances. It is usually distinguished from the 5000 me ...

events. There are now 158 parkrun events in South Africa as of 1 September 2018.

Other honours

In 2004, he was voted 64th in the Top 100 Great South Africans. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the

References

External links

South African Who's Who
– Bruce Fordyce {{DEFAULTSORT:Fordyce, Bruce 1955 births Living people South African male marathon runners South African ultramarathon runners University of the Witwatersrand alumni Male ultramarathon runners