Bruce Fordyce

Bruce Fordyce at his 500th parkrun
Personal information
Nationality	South African
Born	(1955-12-03) 3 December 1955 (age 68) Hong Kong
Alma mater	University of the Witwatersrand
Sport
Sport	marathon ultramarathon
Medal record Comrades Marathon 1979 Comrades Marathon 1980 Comrades Marathon 1981 Comrades Marathon 1982 Comrades Marathon 1983 Comrades Marathon 1984 Comrades Marathon 1985 Comrades Marathon 1986 Comrades Marathon 1987 Comrades Marathon 1988 Comrades Marathon 1990

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 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 to Evan Noel and Nancy Ann (Née Stevenson), Fordyce moved with his family to Johannesburg when he was 13 years old.^[1] He completed his school career at Woodmead High School and subsequently attended the University of the Witwatersrand,^[1] where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree 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 Comrades Marathon, he placed 43rd out of 1,678 entries. He placed 14th in 1978, 3rd in 1979, 2nd in 1980,^[2] and was the winner for an unprecedented eight consecutive years from 1981 to 1988; he won it again in 1990.^[1] No other runner in the history of the Comrades has achieved this feat. Fordyce also held the record time for the "up" run (Durban 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,^[1] 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.^[3][4]

World record holder

Fordyce was the world record holder over 50 miles, when he covered the distance in 4hr 50min 51sec at the 1984 AMJA 50 Mile Ultramarathon in Chicago, IL, until the record was broken by Jim Walmsley on 5 May 2019.^[5][6] Fordyce holds the 50-mile record for the United States All Comers Race.^[2][7]

Political activism

Fordyce was strongly anti-apartheid.^[8] On his first victory race in 1981 he wore a black armband to protest against the 20th anniversary celebrations of the apartheid republic^[3] 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".^[2]

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

Parkrun

Fordyce also introduced the parkrun running events to South Africa in November 2011.^[9][10] This is a collection of free-entry weekly 5k run events. There are now 210 parkrun events in South Africa as of 16 October 2023.^[11] Fordyce ran his 500th parkrun at Delta Park, Johannesburg, the first South African parkrun venue, on 14 October 2023.^[12]

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 University of the Witwatersrand.