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Xaba, who won the title in 2018, became the first SA athlete to win it since then, and said she had to sacrifice not going to the African Senior Championships in Cameroon in June to qualify for the Paris Olympics to focus on the Grand Prix.
“I want to thank my coaches Caster Semenya and Violet Raseboya for always supporting me, pushing me and being there for me because sometimes mentally you need someone very strong to encourage you,” Xaba said.
“I sacrificed a lot when it came to the Grand Prix as I didn’t go to other events because I wanted to complete all Spar races — I needed to run all of them to win it.
“Fitness was on my side and I had to remain focused. I can say that I sacrificed a lot because there were races I needed to attend to qualify for the Olympics, but I turned them down.”
Xaba has now won eight 10km races this year in Spar, Absa and Totalsports, and is now focusing on the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon later this month.
Meanwhile, Lucky Mohale successfully defended his Fat Cats 10K race title with a time of 31:40 yesterday.
The sixth annual race took place at Mall of Africa in Midrand.
Mohale, 39, who was four seconds slower than last year, said he was using the race as part of his speedwork training, having done a 40km training run a day earlier.
The Nedbank runner said his next target was the Africanbank (correct: rebranded earlier this year) Soweto Marathon, taking place on November 3.
“I love this Fat Cats course because it’s very tough and challenging. I have never missed this race in the past three years. There’s no course like this in Thembisa where I normally train,” he said.
In the women’s race, Farida Zwane, 28, took the honours with a time of 38: 54 on her first attempt of the Fat Cats 10K.
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