Joshua Cheptegei’s humility belied the status of a man billed as the star attraction of Sunday’s Absa RunYour City Durban 10k.At the pre-race conference at a hotel on the coastal city’s promenade, the Ugandan superstar who is expected to produce the first sub-27 minutes run on the African continent spoke as one of the athletes. The multiple Olympic and world champion went as far as to strangely refer to athletics as a “team sport” as he spoke of how achieving the desired goal would be possible if they worked together.“I think, in the words of Gilbert [Kiprotich, the Kenyan who is part of the strong field assembled for the race], we will see if we can push together to achieve the goal. Competition is important, but if we can be able to work together towards the given goal. I think it’s like football; it is a team sport, and even athletics now is a team sport,” the 10,000m Olympic champion and record holder in the distance told media on Friday. “I think if all of us come together and say we are going to go for it, I think that would be really something good for us.”His team view notwithstanding, the reality is Cheptegei will line up at the start on Sunday morning as a favourite to win the race that set him up to be the global superstar he now is.Granted, local boy Kabelo Mulaudzi spoke bravely about how he intends to “finish on the podium”, but the defending champion of last year’s race will have to run out of his skin to beat the soft-spoken Ugandan superstar.In 2017 a virtually unknown Cheptegei won the inaugural City race here and returned the following year to set an all-comers’ record of 27:16 that still stands.Reflecting on those years, Cheptegei admitted that the race was influential in his rise in the sport and that, he explained, played a role in him accepting the invitation to return this year.“For me it’s a spectacular moment to run in Africa, especially in South Africa. This race really has a very special place in my heart, especially because I came here as an athlete with a lot of aspirations to become one of the greatest in the world.“At that time I was just coming from Nigeria, where I had a terrible injury, and then when I came here it showed me that I could still really do incredible things. So for me it’s a special place to be here, and it’s a place where they really opened up so many opportunities for me.”And now he’d love to be part of those who scale new heights by running the fastest 10km race on African soil.“For me, I would be very grateful to be part of the history; whether it’s someone in the team, I would be very grateful to have been there. To have South Africa, you know, for the first time in Africa, would really be a very positive story.”TimesLIVE