South Africa boasts a rich potential of sprint stars. Akani Simbine’s coach Werner Prinsloo weighs in on what’s needed to give the world a run for its money.
South Africa has a new wave of exciting young sprinters to add to the established talent of Akani Simbine, which led to a surprise silver medal in the 4 x 100-meters at the Paris Olympic Games. Simbine, Shaun Maswanganyi, Bradley Nkoana and Bayanda Walaza stunned the field to finish second and underline the rich potential of sprint stars in the country.
But nurturing talent from young prospects to the finish is both a labor of love and a long process, with many pitfalls, and highs and lows, along the way.
Werner Prinsloo has been coach of Simbine, 31, for the last 14 years and is regarded as one of the top sprint trainers in the country, and by extension, the African continent.
He is excited by the prospects for several athletes coming through, but has also seen this movie before, and it did not end as he had hoped last time.
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“Sprinters seem to come in waves. If you go back to 2014 or 2015, there was a group of very good sprinters and we thought we were going to dominate the world. But it didn’t happen. They come and go,” Prinsloo tells FORBES AFRICA.
“It’s up to the coaches to nurture the talent and we’ve got a group of really good trainers that can manage these sprinters over time. The big issue we have, and we see this not just in South Africa, is the fact that a lot of juniors don’t transition to the senior level.
“That’s our biggest challenge, because we have a big group of high school sprinters that are very, very good. But taking the next step is the challenge.
“Someone like Akani is an example. He started with me at the age of 17 and he wasn’t a top sprinter in his age group. But over the last 14 years he matured and got better, and that’s what we need to be able to get right with the current youngsters.”
The reason why many promising sprinters fail is largely a socio-economic one, according to Prinsloo.
“There are a lot of factors and we’ve had these discussions among coaches and administrators so many times. A lot of these kids, when they’re in high school, they have a system to work in, they have a coach. Everything’s done for them,” he says.
“Some get to university and that continues, but most don’t. So, what happens then? They don’t have that support system anymore. Now they have to do everything for themselves. Find and pay for a coach, find a physiotherapist and travel from wherever they live to training.
“Most kids come from poor backgrounds and they just can’t afford that. Unless they can somehow go to university, they are lost to the system, despite their enormous potential.”
A MEN’S 100M is generally over in under 10 seconds and to the untrained eye, it just looks like guys trying to run very fast. But Prinsloo reveals there is a real science behind it and a mix of good genes and working on the mechanics of each portion of the race is vital. “People underestimate real sprinting. Everyone can run, but sprinting is a skill that needs to be developed over time,” he says. “Obviously, the best of the best are born with what they call ‘fast twitch muscle fibers’. And they have more of it than everyone else.
“So that gives them a bit of an edge, because they have that ‘speed gene’. Most of the Jamaicans are born with it and those are the guys that become the top sprinters.
“And then over time, it’s just developing the mechanics of sprinting. Some of the guys get it at a young age, some need more maturity over the years to develop it.
“If you break down the 100m, you have your start phase, you have a drive phase, then you have an acceleration and transition phase, which goes into the maximum speed phase. All in under 10 seconds.
“And in each one of these phases, the mechanics are different. The public don’t see it. They just see the guys coming out of the blocks and running, but in each phase the biomechanics are different. We work on each separately.
“Akani is one of the fastest in the world in the maximum speed phase, that is the best part of his race. And we know if we can work on him to get better in the acceleration phase, for example, that will put him in a good position.”
Simbine remains the gold standard, so to speak, in South African sprinting, but has yet to pick up an individual medal at the Olympics despite coming agonizingly close on two occasions.
His time of 9.93s in the Tokyo final in 2021 was four hundredths of a second behind bronze medalist Andre De Grasse. Marcell Jacobs won gold in 9.80.
He bettered his time in Paris to 9.82, and on this occasion was one hundredth of a second behind Fred Kerley (9.81) for the bronze and fractions of a second behind gold medal winner Noah Lyles (9.79).
“Leading up to Paris, we said, ‘look, we have to make this the year to perform’. And so everything in the last few years was geared towards getting him ready,” Prinsloo says.
“We got to a point where in training and in our approach to the work that we do, we found this groove. A big factor was his mentality, his emotional state. He was in a much better space. And that builds a lot of confidence in athletes. “It’s unfortunate he couldn’t get into the medals in the 100m, but the time was good. He ran a personal best and a national record, and that set up everything for the relay silver.”
Prinsloo confirms that the next games in 2028 are very much in Simbine’s sights. “We are looking to the next Olympics in Los Angeles. We are so close to the 9.7s and that’s what we’re pushing for now. It’s going to be small things that will get us there.”
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