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MUTARE businessman, Anwar Khan is best known for trading accident damaged and second hand motor vehicle spare parts at his shop uptown. However, very few people know of his sporting prowess where over the years he has won several swimming and triathlon medals.
Now aged 62-years, Khan has one more hurdle he wishes to achieve in his athletic career as he aims to enter into the 2016 Dusi Canoe Marathon in South Africa held annually every February.
The three-day 120km canoe marathon attracts between 1 600 and 2 000 paddlers each year, making it the biggest canoeing event on the African continent. Khan said he hopes to represent Zimbabwe in the grandmasters division (over 60-years).
In an interview with Post Sport the quiet and soft-spoken Khan opened up about his passion for swimming and endurance sports spanning back as far as 1986.
Described as the “Prince of Endurance” in the South African newspaper, Sunday Times of July 25, 1993, after competing in the South African Topsport Superfit Triathlon to achieve a bronze medal, the reserved Khan has an untold story to tell.
Back then, he became the first non-white in the veteran class at the age 41 to win a medal. He said he comes from a family of great sports-people and was out to write his own history to add to the Khans dynasty.
He said in the Khan dynasty, there is Jehangir Khan, the former squash world champion known to be the greatest player in the history of the game until his retirement in 1993. There was also Imraan Khan, who at one point was rated as the fastest bowler in the world in cricket. He said his passion was in endurance swims and triathlon competitions.
Early this year in February, Khan participated in the 1,6 km Midmar Mile in South Africa, one of the world’s largest open-water swim competitions. Competing after 20-years out of the game, Khan added another bronze medal to his achievements and wrote his own history as the first non-white in the grandmasters division to compete in the endurance swimming race.
Khan, who has a degree in water sports is a qualified lifeguard. He started his swimming career in 1986.
In South Africa from 1987 to 1990, he was the vice-chairman of Albatross Life Saving Club and also served as a voluntary life guard at Durban’s beach-front for three-years.
In his first challenge in 1987 in the 3,2km Mainstay endurance surf swim he won a bronze medal. Thereafter there was no turning back as he entered into professional endurance swimming competitions after participating in various swimming events.
In 1998, Khan completed the 3,8km Ironman water swim, where he competed against world class endurance race athletes but unfortunately did not win a medal but managed to swim the distance in under two-hours.
“While surfing, I watched the triathlon taking place on the Durban beach-front and found this a challenge. The triathlon is a the ultimate endurance in which competitors swim 3,2km in the ocean, followed by a 120km cycle and a 32km run within a cut off time.
“It, however, took me a whole year to build up the endurance needed to participate in a triathlon,” said the soft-spoken Khan, who is also an environmentalist, currently the vice-chairman of the Manicaland Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe.
In 1988, he also competed in the Scottburgh to Brighton beach lifeguard endurance race, a gruelling 50km beach run on different rocky terrains on the sea shore.
He competed in the race, twice winning bronze medals.
This was followed by another major race, the 90km International Comrades Marathon in 1988.
In the cycling endurance races, he was a member of the Triangle Cycling Club, where he competed in various cycling competitions including the 1989 Pietermaritzburg to Durban National Classic, which was a 90km race.
“In 1989, I undertook a three-year programme in yoga and meditation. The strenuous and disciplinary exercises I did applied to my swimming, cycling and running fitness,” he said.
In 1993, after an absence of three-years, he competed in the Voltaren Super-fit triathlon and won a bronze medal.
He wrote his own history again, becoming the first non-white to complete the triathlon in the veteran class at age 41.
“As I recall, Zimbabwe’s professional triathlete Mark Marabini came first in the 1993 triathlon,” said Khan.
He, however, said it took a lot of dedicated training and fitness to be an endurance sports athlete and to become super-fit.
Khan said he was now focused on pushing himself to the limits by competing in his probably last ultimate challenge, the Dusi Canoe Marathon.
He said the three-day Dusi Marathon held between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, South Africa has a gruelling 120km canoe marathon not for the faint-hearted.
“It is an experience with thrills of racing down the Msunduzi and Umgeni Rivers down to Durban’s beach-front over a distance of 120km full of adrenaline laced action, long rocky rapids and waterfalls and various unseen obstacles.
“The Dusi Canoe Marathon poses a challenge unlike any other canoe marathon, where one’s paddling skills are pushed to the limits and tested.
“To participate in endurance races lies mostly in the mind, of which, for me the joy is mostly in the completion of the race, which is a joy no money can buy,” said Khan.
Online Reporter