Dewayne Mouries is in the form of his life. The 38-year-old police officer who runs for the Boxer Athletics Club recently won the Richmond Corner 10k in a personal best of 30:16 (where he finished almost a minute ahead of his nearest competitor). He also ran 30:48 at the Gqeberha leg of the ABSA Run Your City (RYC) series and a 30:43 at the Paarl SportSA 10km.
At the latter event, Mouries finished third just 5 seconds behind Yanga Malusi and 2 seconds behind William Kaptein. Both Kaptein and Malusi are in the Elite field at the CTM Peace Run. Mouries was hoping to break 30 minutes for the first time at the cancelled Cape Town ABSA RYC 10k two weeks ago and had now set his sights on this milestone at the CTM Peace Run.
Mouries entered the Peace Run as a contender – which should have been a formality given his recent form. However, when he got his race confirmation notification he was dismayed to see that he’d be starting in A batch, five minutes behind the Elite field. This also means that he would be out of contention for prize money as only the Elite field are eligible for prize money.
When Mouries contacted the race office, he received a reply from ‘Barbara’ informing him that “Elite is by invitation only.” It is noteworthy that his current time would have given him a Top 5 finish at the 2025 event and a sub-30 would be a likely podium.
Dewayne patiently persisted in his emails to Barbara and on email four asked:
“What happened to when your local athletes could start with the elites/front runners?
How do you create space for your juniors and rising senior runners who can deliver fast times if been placed with those elites?
All the other times the Peace Run didn’t had a seeding like what you have now.
Another thing is we as local even from far we pay full amount of entry fee and then you have your elite runners who gets invitations they come run free of charge.”
The entry fee is R320 for the 10k which is probably the most expensive 10 kilometre run in South Africa. The Cape Town Marathon is the most expensive marathon in South Africa. CTM is also unique on the South African road running calendar as it is run as a “for profit event.”
The one definitive answer Mouries was able to obtain from Barbara was when he asked for a refund, “Kindly note that the 2026 entries cannot be refunded, substituted (transferred to another runner), sold or deferred to another event year.”
Aside: After recent events at Two Oceans, I contacted CTM’s media desk and their marketing manager Renata Bossi with the below questions about how CTM will be dealing with bib banditting. This is especially pertinent given that CTM allowed no substitutions and one of their staff members has been directly linked to supporting bandits. No reply has been received to the email sent two weeks ago.
READ MORE: Doubling Down on Integrity: A Question for Kendra Stewart
Barbara signed off with, “Kindly note the Elite invitation process is concluded months ahead of the event by a very competitent and knowledgeable team. They cant invite everyone, there is limited capacity.” I assume spelling “competitent” incorrectly was a genuine lapse of competence rather than being done ironically.
As to who or how elites were invited and why there was no room to include faster runners who did not crack the nod on the original list of invitees – well that’s anyone’s guess. As I am no longer receiving replies from the official media and race comms, I contacted CTM CEO Clark Gardner directly (just after 14h00 today) but no reply was received at the time of publication.
Apparently Western Province Athletics (WPA) are as in the dark about CTM’s mysterious “by invitation only” policy as everyone else is. I understand that WPA sent through an official enquiry and received the below response from Clark Gardner.
This directly contradicts Barbara’s replies to Mouries. Gardner states, “All male athletes who submitted a qualifying or estimated finish time (or who have achieved a previous race result) under 32 minutes, have been given elite seeding.”
In a later paragraph Gardner reaffirms, “All athletes who applied for elite seeding, either ahead of batch allocation or upon being informed that they would be starting in A batch, have been given elite seeding. All athletes who submitted individual requests to the race office for elite seeding, have been given elite seeding.”
I think I believe Barabara’s version more than that of her boss.
Mouries has done everything possible to try and get his rightful Elite status. All his emails have been very polite and non-confrontational. He went to the Expo earlier today to try and plead his case but was told, “Best we can do is an A seeding.” And it’s not like he can try to run a faster time because Elites are “By invitation only.”
There is no evidence that any set of criteria for Elite status was published by CTM or made available ahead of the event. So there is also the very real possibility that they are just making it up as they go along.
Mouries provided the names of at least three other WPA athletes who should also be starting with the Elites but were omitted from the invitation list: Keaton Lott, Curtis Booysen and Emmy Lepati.
Of interest is that Gardner concludes his letter which was addressed to Farouk Meyer, President of WPA, with, “We trust that you will enjoy the race.” It is common knowledge that the relations between CTM and WPA (as well as Athletics South Africa) are severely strained and most meetings occur with lawyers present on both sides. No one from WPA or ASA was invited to any CTM functions or the event itself this year. A breakdown in relations to this extent cannot be in anyone’s best interests.
There has also been discontent raised from several quarters of the running community on various topics relating to this year’s event including that there are apparently no age category prizes in 2026, that the club gazebo process was an “absolute shambles”, that run crews and influencers aligned to CTM staff members are being prioritised over WPA clubs / club runners and general “arrogance by the committee.”
I was also reliably informed that a senior WPA official was suspended for serious financial irregularities as well as unauthorised and unlawful conduct relating to CTM contract extensions. There was an extension signed until 2031 and then this was further extended by another 20 years to 2051.
Let’s hope that none of this jeopardises CTM’s bid to become Africa’s first World Marathon Major.
Update: I received a message from Dewayne on Friday morning that he has now been granted Elite status and will be lining up at the front of the Peace Run on Saturday. Just a pity that athletes need to go to these lengths to get their rightful recognition.
Follow Running Mann:
Who is Clark Gardner? Not where does he work or what is his job function.
There must be a picture of him running at least something.
Just trying to establish how disconnected he is from athletics.
“Hey Dewayne, we don’t know how this happened. Apologies. Please join in the Elite field”.
Not difficult, Mr Gardner.
I can only hope that Dewayne runs a Top 5 time.
I think next level is to engage with the sponsors – ask Sanlam publicly if they fear reputational harm to be associated with this cess.
Why do I get impression that Dewayne’s elevation to the elite field was connected in some way due to your intervention.
When you write, people start taking notice.
It is very disappointing to note that there is almost total breakdown between the various bodies governing road running in the WP. The only people who gain are the lawyers, and the runners themselves are paying for that.
Perhaps that’s another story for another time. I’m sure it must be somewhere on your radar.
Yor must athletes go to the extent to be recognized in these events? At the end it’s the athletes that makes this races famous nd they pay alot of money to be kicked to the curb huh? And without athletes nd their entries there is no money. They thought that everyone should just be fine with their decisions. The lawyers got nothing to do with decisions regarding the actual race, unless legislation. I’m glad he didn’t left just there and accepted the unfairness. You go boy!