South Africa has always had good athletes. Upon our first inclusion into the Olympics after Apartheid, we won the defining event of the ancient Olympics - the marathon. We've had above-average middle distance runners in past but today, we have a generation of really fast guys across many events. Akani Simbine & Wayde van Niekerk being the faces of the recent sprinting renaissance in South Africa.
The relay mentality:
As much as there's chaos & anarchy in South Africa, there are pockets of order. This is why we rarely fuddle simple tasks. Our army for example, isn't the best in Africa but we get some small basic things right. And if you can get small basic things right, you can do surprisingly well. And this is why relays are almost perfect for South Africa. We are seldom wasteful because we don't often have the luxury of plenty & relays are about efficiency as much as they are about speed. That switch between athletes in a race can cost you or save you a second or split second. A second that can often define a race. Efficiency & practicality won us the recent 4 × 100m bronze in the 2024 Olympics & got us 4 × 400m men's success in this year's 2025 World Championships. A throwback to the swimming team in the 2004 Athens Olympics that won the 4 × 100m men's freestyle. The USA isn't new to relay mess ups because they're more about personal bests but they're of course the obvious contenders when it comes to any track (athletics) event. While South Africa, at it's best, is just about getting the job done. We just need Simbine, van Niekerk & Maswangayi to team up in the 4 × 200m relay & see if we can set a World Record. It's possible.
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