Race Opens Door for Marathoner : A Top Contender at L.A., South African Hopes to Take Advantage of Chance

Marathon runner Peter Tshikila of South Africa, one of the favorites in Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon, and his coach, Stanford Dondolo, noticed the homeless men begging for handouts as they wound through the streets of downtown Los Angeles on a training run Monday morning.

The plight of the homeless left an impression on Tshikila (Cha-KEY-luh) and Dondolo, who live in Uitenhage, an impoverished community near Port Elizabeth on the eastern cape of South Africa.

“(The Los Angeles homeless) are better (off) because they live in town,” Dondolo said. “Our (homeless) people don’t live in town. They just come to town to collect some food, then they just go to the bush and sleep in the forest.”

The second-oldest of nine children, Tshikila, 30, has been deaf since birth. He has 10% hearing in his right ear and is totally deaf in the left. Too poor to afford a hearing aid, Tshikila completed the eighth grade before leaving school because the special-education facilities at his school were inadequate.

Tshikila found work as a janitor to help support his parents, seven brothers and a sister. His $3,000 yearly salary helps provide his family with a four-room mud-brick house with a corrugated tin roof. The 11 family members share two bedrooms in a house that doesn’t have indoor plumbing, electricity or a telephone.

“He was brought up in a society that was closed to him because of his skin color,” said Ray de Vries, a wealthy white South African businessman who recently became Tshikila’s agent-manager. “The poverty that he lives in is unbelievable.

“The place he lives in makes Somalia look like a luxury farm in Soweto.”

Tshikila, who ran for fun in school, began entering road races every weekend to earn extra income in 1982.

“South African runners don’t get rest,” de Vries said. “They have to run for survival.”

Tshikila persuaded Dondolo, a longtime family friend, to become his ears, voice and coach. A butcher by trade, Dondolo knew little about coaching runners, but agreed anyway.

Dondolo, who has a 9-year-old son who is deaf, opened a new world for Tshikila when he borrowed his son’s hearing aid and put it in Tshikila’s ear.

“Peter was so delighted that he didn’t want to give it back,” Dondolo said. “He could finally hear for the first time.”

But Tshikila will have a hearing aid when he returns home from Los Angeles.

Instead of paying Tshikila an appearance fee, Los Angeles Marathon officials are buying him a hearing aid. He was fitted with one Monday after he had been examined by Dr. Ralph A. Nelson, who said that the device would restore 50% of Tshikila’s hearing in the right ear.

The doctor also discovered, however, that the runner has a serious ear condition that can be rectified only through surgery. If Tshikila wins the race, he will have the surgery done at his own expense. Otherwise, marathon officials will put up $5,000 toward the surgery.

Tshikila stands a reasonable chance of winning here. He has the fastest time--2 hours 10 minutes 53 seconds--among the elite field and could earn a new luxury car and/or prize money with a good finish here.

The men’s marathon winner gets a luxury sedan, which can be sold at market value. The second-place finisher gets $15,000. Third place is worth $10,000, fourth place $5,000 and fifth $2,500.

There are also time incentives--$250,000 for breaking the world record of 2:06:50, $65,000 for a time of 2:08, $45,000 for 2:08:30, $35,000 for 2:09, $30,000 for 2:10, $25,000 for 2:10:19, $15,000 for 2:11, $12,000 for 2:12, $10,500 for 2:13, $5,000 for 2:14 and $2,500 for 2:15.

“My hope is that he finishes in the top three in the L.A. Marathon,” de Vries said. “This is going to change his entire life, his family’s life and his whole village’s life.

“The boycott (South African athletes weren’t allowed to participate in the Olympics for more than 20 years because of apartheid) went on too long. We lost a whole generation of heroes and 99% of them were black. . . .

“I think guys like (world-class marathoner) Willie Mtolo (winner of the 1992 New York Marathon) help heal South Africa more than any politician in some fancy limo giving a speech. There’s a revolution going on in South Africa, and it’s a running revolution. It’s one of the better revolutions.”

Tshikila, who couldn’t afford a pair of running shoes, training in old tennis shoes, ran a 2:10:53 in his first marathon in 1989, finishing second behind David Tsebe, who had the fastest time in the world last year, 2:08:07.

Tshikila’s time is even more amazing, considering that he didn’t train or eat properly for the race.

“Peter’s club chairman kept telling him to slow down because he was running against David Tsebe,” de Vries said. “He told Peter that he was mad to run that fast, but Peter didn’t know what all the fuss was about and he finished second by five seconds.”

Tshikila, who has concentrated on road racing, has run three other marathons, all in South Africa. But he hasn’t improved his times, running 2:18, 2:16 and 2:15 because he has been unable to train properly until recently.

Dondolo said that Tshikila didn’t enter the Olympic trials because they conflicted with a road race in which he could earn prize money to help support his family.

Dondolo contacted de Vries, who manages several other athletes including Mtolo. But de Vries, who claims to have been besieged by runners who want him to manage them because of Mtolo’s success, ignored Dondolo until early this year.

“I get 10 to 15 calls a day from guns who want me to look at them run,” de Vries said. “But most of them aren’t good enough.”

But Dondolo was persistent and de Vries finally flew Tshikila and Dondolo to Durban for a meeting in January. De Vries tested Tshikila by having him race Mtolo in a 10K. Although the race was run in 95-degree heat, Tshikila lost to Mtolo by only three seconds.

“Willie was very surprised by Peter and said, ‘This guy’s got potential,’ ” de Vries said.

De Vries agreed to manage Tshikila and put him on a training program. He also got him sponsorship from an athletic-shoe company, which provided him with his first pair of running shoes.

Leaving South Africa for the first time has opened a new world for Dondolo and Tshikila. Like most tourists, they visited Disneyland, where they received a special VIP tour and met Mickey Mouse.

“When I explained to Peter about Disneyland, he was afraid,” Dondolo said. “I said, ‘You don’t have to be afraid.’ But he said, ‘If I go in there, you must come.’ He loved it. He said he could live at Disneyland all his life.”