Two Oceans Board member (and former chairperson) calls cutoff issue ‘trivial matter’

It is in times of great turmoil that you hope for a hero. Someone who will step forward to create sense and order from the chaos. Someone who will do the right thing when others cower and hide. Someone who will act with the maturity and integrity that their peers seem incapable of.

As William Shakespeare said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” It was indeed another William who raised his hand amidst the turmoil of the Two Oceans cutoff saga. William Swartbooi is a current Two Oceans Board member and former chairperson of the organisation.

This William is part of a Board that has stumbled over sensibility, tripped over truthfulness and trampled on the hopes and dreams of the runners they are meant to serve. If William Shakespeare were alive today, no doubt the Bard of Avon would shake his head in dismay and observe on the current Board of Bergvliet, “Some are born stupid, some achieve stupidity, and some have stupidity thrust upon them.”

Most readers of this article will be aware of the Two Oceans cutoff saga but, for those joining midseason, here’s a quick summary. Two Oceans is the second largest ultra marathon on the planet and has been running for over 50 years. This year the cutoff at the marathon mark was illogically tight and much stricter than in previous years. There was no proper communication of the change in the cutoff time to runners. Many runners who would have been able to finish the 56km race in under 7-hours were prematurely pulled off the road at the marathon mark. There were three different marathon cutoff times listed on the official website.

However, the Two Oceans Board issued a statement after the event blaming runners for not reading the cutoff times in the digimag. Subsequently it was uncovered that the Two Oceans Board had, depending on your perspective, either lied or provided explanations which have “now been found to be erroneous” as the cutoff times were not in the originally published digimag and appeared to have been added after the event*.

* Five weeks after the event Two Oceans issued an “Unreserved Apology“. This provided the explanation that, “Our investigation into the information in the digimag revealed that two versions were available, one live version including the cut-off information and a version that was downloadable, that did not include the cut-off information.” I have spoken to people in the media industry who have cast doubt on the authenticity of this statement.

A “Trivial Matter”

In the face of many organisational failings you would expect some humility to be shown by the Board. Not if you’re William Swartbooi. To a post below thanking another Board member for helping to sort out a medal engraving issue, Swartbooi responded with the comment indicating that he felt the cutoff issue was a “trivial matter”. Furthermore he played the victim card bemoaning the lack of recognition for “how taxing it is to arrange a world class event.”

Whether Two Oceans is still a world class event is highly debatable but most runners (including this one) would agree that the standards have significantly slipped over the years and the organisation of the ‘Most Beautiful Marathon in the World’ can be classified as mediocre* at best. However, I have had my feelers out chatting to current and former Board members as well as people closely connected to the race. One of the questions I ask is, “Who are the hard working members on the current Board?” Several names are consistently mentioned. The name William Swartbooi has not been mentioned once.

* I am currently in conversation with several Two Oceans ‘legends’ who are equally concerned with the direction the event has taken.

Swartbooi’s comment was later deleted. Perhaps another Board member suggested that calling the cutoff issue a “trivial matter” was ill-advised or perhaps he just realised that his back-patting post was out of place amongst the other comments from various runners complaining that they had the same problem but had not been able to get it resolved or were flat out ignored by Two Oceans.

Luring the Troll out of his Cave

William Swartbooi came onto my radar when he started commenting on my posts with some rather obscure and juvenile memes. I try not to feed the trolls but occasionally I cannot resist. I threw out the bait and successfully lured this troll out of his cave.

Swartbooi provided a waffly response (which he has also subsequently deleted – although the juvenile gifs remain) lamenting that his years of service and experience are not appreciated by people like myself (you’re welcome to pat your own back William but I’m not going to do it for you), that Two Oceans 2024 was a tremendous organisational success and that people like myself where just seeking attention. My reply is included below.

This was the last time that Swartbooi ‘used his words’ and all subsequent communication to me was in the form of gifs and memes. I was and still am astounded at the infantile behaviour and attitude of a senior member (and former chairperson) of the Two Oceans Board, as were others who saw his posts.

Getting Swartbooied

However, I shouldn’t feel special. Various other people including Norrie Williamson (a lifetime servant of the sport who currently spends most of his time on assignment with World Athletics) and Candyce Hall (herself a former Western Province Athletics board member and currently ‘boss lady’ and coach at Carbineers WP) also had their Facebook profiles ‘Swartbooied’ with infantile gifs and memes. A selection of Swartbooi’s gifs and memes to cutoff posts are included below.

Swartbooi, who is in his late 60s, is clearly a recent graduate of the Helen Zille School of Social Media. And, like Helen Zille, he appears to be well past his sell by date and a liability to any organisation that he is a part of.

Norrie Williamson, a man with more practical and international road running organisational experience than probably anyone else in the country, posted a well thought out argument for adjusting the published Comrades cutoff times. This seems to have triggered Swartbooi into a meme dropping frenzy.

Williamson’s post got several hundred likes, over 150 comments and 63 shares (which in turn received hundreds more likes and comments). Every single comment was supportive except for one lone dissenting voice – that of William Swartbooi.

Once again, words failed Swartbooi who resorted to juvenile gifs to voice his opinion. However, the running community had plenty of words to express their disappointment for the childishness shown by Swartbooi as well as the disdain with which he seems to regard runners in general.

Williamson provided a lengthy response chastising Swartbooi and expressing his astonishment for the contempt and scorn with which Swartbooi seems to view the runners he represents. However, it is to William Swartbooi that we owe a debt of gratitude for providing a face to everything that is wrong with the Board system and organisation of South Africa’s major ultras. Swartbooi’s infantile antics have exposed the pervasive parasitic mindset that permeates the boards of our major races as well as within provincial and national athletics administration.

The Top of Mount Stupid

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a statistically proven cognitive bias in which those with a low level of competence in a particular area drastically overestimate their abilities. This can be observed all over the internet with people expressing strong and confident opinions about topics they have limited competence in. In colloquial terms this is known as ‘being on the top of Mount Stupid’ (see graph below).

According to the announcement of his being elected chair on the Two Oceans Website from December 2020, Swartbooi is “a Professional Coaching practitioner”. As such he should be familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect.

However, it was his favourite quote within this article that caught my attention: “I like to live my life by a quote from author and thought leader Simon Sinek: ‘Leadership is not about being in charge; it is about taking care of those in your charge’”.

Talk is indeed cheap, participating in the Two Oceans Marathon is not – especially for almost 80% of the field who spend tens-of-thousands of rands to travel to Cape Town to participate. They deserve better than to be told that their valid complaints about mismanaged cutoffs are a “trivial issue”.

Whilst there are plenty of competent administrators and organisers out there, their efforts to grow the sport and hold inclusive, runner centric events are thwarted by the boulders that the William Swartboois of the world roll down from the top of Mount Stupid. Unfortunately, it is the influence of the Swartboois of the world who pitch their tent (and in some cases have built permanent fortifications) at the top of Mount Stupid that holds our sport back. There’s a William Swartbooi on every race board and every provincial and national athletics body. It’s time we purged these parasites from our sport.

Afterword

William Swartbooi was approached for comment but no response has been received at the time of going to publication. He was also offered a pre-published version of this article for review and comment but the offer was not accepted.

Swartbooi did however threaten to “legal action me” if I published an article featuring him so I delayed this article with an attorney to verify that I was not crossing any legal boundaries and with some award winning journalists to ensure I was not crossing ethical boundaries. I am comfortable and confident that this article is both in the public interest and beyond legal reproach but, should Swartbooi still want to involve his attorney, I would suggest he read up on the “Streisand effect“.

William Swartbooi is one of the four Western Province Athletics (WPA) representatives on the 12-person Two Oceans Board. I asked Western Province Athletics President, Farouk Meyer, whether he was aware of Swartbooi’s behaviour and if disciplinary action would be taken against Swartbooi. Meyer confirmed that Swartbooi holds no formal position with WPA structures but was put onto the Board on the basis of him being a former chair. Meyer acknowledged that he was aware of Swartbooi’s behaviour but said he was hoping that Two Oceans would deal with Swartbooi internally rather than WPA having to undertake a formal disciplinary investigation.

I referred the below set of questions to the Two Oceans Race Director, Chair and Vice Chair but did not receive a response to my original email or follow-up (note one question has been redacted as it mentions a Two Oceans employee not mentioned within this article).

If you feel strongly about this issue and the future of South Africa’s great ultras, make every effort to sign up and attend the AGMs which is where board members are elected.

All Two Oceans Blue Number Club holders and WPA clubs in good standing can attend and vote at the next Two Oceans AGM. This is usually held in September. If you are a Blue Number Club member (ultra or half marathon) and you have not registered your membership with the NPC, please contact racedirector@twooeansmarathon.org.za.

You can sign up for the Comrades Marathon Association here: https://comrades.com/about/membership The cost is R100 and needs to be paid before the end of June if you want voting rights at the next AGM which is normally held at the end of November.

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