10 year old athlete shatters world record

It took a few weeks for his new record to be recorded and recognised, but now this friendly sixth grader can officially call himself a world record holder.

“I was feeling really good that day. I was at an inter-varsity meet in Pretoria, and I decided to just challenge myself for fun. The clock was running. I finished my lap. And then I realised I’d broken the world record,” ten year old Decland Wright recounted.

During lunch break at an athletics meeting on 26 April, Wright impulsively decided to have a run. He promptly broke the under-10 world record for the 1000m track event by posting a time of 2 minutes, 57 seconds and 30 split seconds.

“I don’t view it as breaking a world record,” Wright confessed during an interview at his school, Genl. Christiaan de Wet in Sophiatown.

“I see it as posting my new personal best.”

He blithely added, “I’ve actually broken the world record a couple of times before during training sessions.”

And yes, he’s quite confident that there are more world records out there for him to break.

Wright is motivated by his father Donovan, a former double gold medalist in the Comrades marathon, who also acts as his coach.

“Due to my dad’s life in athletics I have and still live around the best-ever middle and long distance athletes ever produced in South Africa.”

At the South African primary school championships, held in Paarl in March, he also emerged victorious.

“In the final I stepped out to defend a title that I truly believed was mine. I was mentally ready to race. I had just discovered that my father’s cancer was back in spite of his intense fight the previous year. I won South African Primary School Champs…and I stayed unbeaten. I ran for Dad.”

Donovan Wright has beaten brain cancer before, but he’s battling the disease again.

“Despite his very strong faith, intense will to fight and incredible strength of character; at this stage the cancer and chemotherapy seem to be winning out and my father is very ill at this moment,” the younger Wright told Northcliff Melville Times.

Wright senior said that it is not often that you find a child that does what you do and does it much better. “I am really proud of my son,” he said.

He was also present at the momentous event. “My dad was really happy. My mum started crying when I told her on the phone. My friends and classmates are also proud of me,” Wright said, “But I’m not a hero. I don’t want to show off.”

And what does a newly-minted world record holder do in his time off? “I like playing with my dogs and my friends,” he said. “I actually beat my one dog, a Rottweiler, in a seven-event track competition.”

He trains every day.

“On hard days I train for about 50 minutes, and on easy ones it’s about thirty minutes. But before athletic meets I take two days off and rest.”

Wright started running track events when he was eight years old, and he clearly hasn’t looked back since. He has won every event he has participated in this season. He doesn’t think there’s any particular secret to his success.

“I eat ProNutro for breakfast,” he offered doubtfully. “I don’t eat anything special or do anything special really. I’m just normal.”

Some might beg to disagree with that.

Wright does have some advice for other aspiring world-record breakers though. “Of course, I want others to break world records. Then,” he laughed, “Then I can break them again.”