By Liam Jean Pierre
167 km is approximately 0,04% of the way to the moon, but Calling Cape Town attempts to reach even further to help bring affordable education to low-income communities. Calling Cape Town is a 24-hour extreme triathlon fundraising event that combines some of the world’s most iconic individual swim-cycle-run events: an eight km swim from Robben Island, a 109 km cycle tour of the Cape Peninsula, and to finish it off with the 50 km Three Peaks Challenge Route. A grueling exercise, but for the student it helps, it is far from futile.
The challenge began just before the break of dawn on 8 March. At 05:00 all of the swimmers plunged into the water. The icy Atlantic water’s temperature hovered around 16°C. “The cold water was a rush to my body,” says Tyron Sandison, a BScHons (Physics) student with a focal area in Theoretical Physics. Swimmers faced a strict three-hour cut-off time before being pulled out, adding a psychological aspect to the already chilling physical pressure. When asked why he participated, his motivation was clear, “I wanted to find a challenge you can’t find elsewhere and it comes with being able to do something for a great cause.”
As the sun rose, the focus shifted from the ocean to the road. After a quick transition, the cycle commenced for most athletes before 9:00. While the Cape Town Cycle Tour offers world-class scenery from Chapman’s Peak and the Cape Peninsula, conditions were still relentless. Cyclists battled a peak heat of 29°C over an average of five hours – a distance equivalent of cycling from the Neelsie to the V&A Waterfront and back.
The final, perhaps most punishing, event was the 50 km run Three Peaks Challenge Route. Athletes must summit Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, and Lion’s Head, conquering a total elevation of 2,8 km. For most, this last push is an exhausting 12-hour ordeal that had to end before 05:00 the next morning.
For Sandison, the achievement proves that the highest barriers to summit are often mental. “I think people underestimate themselves,” he says. “More people should sign up. It’s good to challenge yourself.” Beyond the endurance training, the heart of Calling Cape Town lies in the fundraising. Corné de Jonge, a BScHons (Mathematics) student, emphasises that every donation makes a difference: “You bargain on a few R30s. I think people don’t think their R30 makes a difference, but it does.”
While the training and effort of each athlete is immense, the financial impact is even more significant. This year, a truly dedicated group of Stellenbosch-based students and staff managed to raise approximately R250 000 through their individual fundraising feats – an extremely impressive sum, built not just from institutional funding, but by the relentless personal sacrifice of each of the participants themselves. They may have only traveled 0,04% of the way to the moon, but for the students whose futures are now funded, the effort is beyond this world.
