SA athletes will need better form and a bit more luck at Paris Olympics

Having missed out on the Olympic podium for the first time since readmission in Tokyo two years ago, the national athletics team have hardly garnered much faith from starving track and field fans, indicating with another dry run at the World Championships that medals will be few and far between at next year’s Paris Games.

They do retain hopes of getting on the board at the multi-sport showpiece, but they going to require more than in-form athletes. They’re also going to need a change of fortune.

The SA squad failed to return home with a single medal from the World Athletics Championships, which came to a close in Budapest last weekend, extending a six-year drought at the global track and field spectacle.

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Most alarming, however, was not the absence of athletes on the podium, but rather the absence of athletes in finals.

Though he was below par based on his own standards, Wayde van Niekerk secured the team’s best result, finishing eighth in the men’s 400m final – a lone performance which reflects a complete lack of depth at the highest level of the sport.

There were some younger athletes in the national squad who showed promise in the long-term build-up to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, progressing beyond the first-round heats in their events. But in Paris next year, most of them will still be too young and inexperienced to put up much of a fight in the battle for medals.

Bad luck

Things didn’t go their way in Budapest, however, and it was as if the team had been cursed with bad luck.

Akani Simbine was disqualified for a false start in the men’s 100m semifinals after lining up among the favourites, rising star Prudence Sekgodiso crashed to the track in the women’s 800m semifinals, Tshepo Tshite was just 0.01 shy of a spot in the 1 500m final, and the 4x100m relay team fumbled a baton exchange and did not finish their race.

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They would have been gutted with their results in the Hungarian capital, but the likes of Simbine and Van Niekerk will again be aiming for medals at next year’s Olympics.

If they get enough time to work together in advance, the relay squad should be in the hunt, while a handful of younger athletes will also be hoping to punch above their weight.

To end their lengthy drought, however, the country’s top athletes are going to have to be at their best in Paris.

Following a disastrous campaign in Budapest, they are also due for some luck. And they’ll need that too.