Why didn’t Wayde just take on an ostrich?

“It’s not in your best interest to go outside what you’re focused on because if you’re involved in a sport that involves direction changes, for example, there’s a high risk of non-contact ACL injuries,” sport scientist Helen Bayne told The Citizen last week.

But Team Dimension Data’s sports medicine physician Jarrad van Zuydam was less diplomatic when he tweeted: “This is a potentially career-ending injury. Some athletes never come back from an ACL. Worth it? Dear world class athletes, skip the celebrity touch-rugby/beach football/hopscotch tournaments. You will get injured.”

Although former athlete Arnaud Malherbe was more sympathetic, he also questioned the logic behind the decision to play touch rugby in the first place. “While I fully understand and support his reasons for playing, it may have been a risk he shouldn’t have taken,” said the former SA 400m record holder.

Before he underwent surgery in the United States last week, Wayde himself was quoted as saying: “I trust that the team I have around me, including the medical professionals, will make this process as smooth as possible.”

My question is: why did his support team allow him to play touch rugby in the first place if it is that obvious it was such a risky business? For starters, the man is the world record holder in the 400m as well as the Olympic and two-time world champion. He’s achieved global stardom for running around a track. Surely keeping him physically intact for continuing doing what he does best should be the goal at all times.

Being one of the global faces of Adidas, Wayde will definitely not be caught wearing a Nike T-shirt on a stroll with his new bride along the beach. And while he was given the keys to a R3 million Audi A8 last year, I also can’t see him pitch up at Mimosa Mall in Bloemfontein in a Corolla. And sporting a Richard Mille wrist watch valued at close to R10 million, what are the chances the Free State paparazzi will snap him wearing a Casio to training.

These are petty little things, but yet so obvious. So why couldn’t a serious thing, like allowing him to venture outside his sporting boundaries, not have been that obvious? There are so many other things within his usual confines he could have done to woo the Newlands crowd ahead of a Test match against the All Blacks.

Well actually, taken his celebrity status into account, he could have just showed up on the pitch and waved to the crowd to get a standing ovation. That comes with the territory of being a superstar. But why not let him take on Seabelo Senatla over 80 metres in a straight line? Or do the whole “man versus beast” thing and pit him against a cheetah or a greyhound or an ostrich?

I really hope the whole ordeal will be lesson learnt and will only be a footnote on an otherwise illustrious Wikipedia page by the time he retires. Heaven forbid it should be anything more than that. What a pity hindsight is an exact science.