Cape Town - Olympic silver-medallist Elana Meyer believes that there should be more South African female representation at the Olympics and international arena.
Meyer won silver for South Africa in the 10 000m at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.
The 53-year-old revealed that although South African athletics is in a good place, Meyer was concerned over the lack of representation of female athletes.
"I think South Africa performed incredible well at the last Olympics. If you look at the performances of Wayde van Niekerk, Caster Semenya - they really brought back medals and records - and really performed well on the international arena," Meyer told Sport24 on Friday at the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon press conference.
"But I do think there's always a opportunity to do more, we don't need a few stars, we need a equal representation. We need more women representing South Africa on the world stages, if you look at the three last Olympic Games, the women made only about a third of the team.
"We need to invest in the development of female athletes and this is what I'm doing with Endurocad, trying to insure that our young female athletes get education and they get the opportunity to develop in the sporting talent."
Meyer is currently a ambassador for this weekend's Cape Town Marathon and revealed that being part of the IAAF Gold Label-status city marathon is a "dream come true".
"This has been a fantastic journey, as a athlete I've always wanted to run a major race on South African soil, which I never got the opportunity to run a marathon against world class athletes," said Meyer.
"So this is really a dream come true, seeing how the event has grown... I'm really proud to see what has happened, it's fantastic to welcome the world to Cape Town."
The Cape Town Marathon main race gets underway on Sunday from 06:40.
The marathon's jam-packed diary includes:
Saturday, September 14
Race registration and expo at Century City Conference Centre
Two Peace Trail Runs (22km and 12km) and 5km Peace Run
Captains Challenge breakfast with Francois Pienaar
Afternoon high tea for women in sport and health at Tsogo Sun Cullinan Hotel
Sunday, September 15
42.2km Marathon
10km Peace Run
13500 entries in the marathon. Just under 10000 in the 10k, around 2000 in the 5km and 500 each in the two trail races for a total of around 26000 athletes lining up this weekend
— Cape Town Marathon (@CTMarathon) September 13, 2019