Wenda Nel, current African and South African champion, believes the secret to performing at her best in the 400-hurdles at the Olympic Games tomorrow is to take nothing for granted.

“The biggest mistake I can make will be to think that it will be a mere formality for me to qualify for the semi-finals. There are never any guarantees. There will be quite a few athletes competing in the heats with absolutely nothing to lose. They realise that their chances of qualifying for a final are slim so their only goal is to run to the best of their ability, hoping to set a best time. And they do! That is what makes competing in the heats so difficult,” said the Tuks/hpc athlete.

“In 2011, when I competed at a World Championship for the first time, I was one of those athletes. I was only the 7^th or 8^th fastest athlete in my heat but, because I ran without any fear or expectations, I qualified for the semi-final against all odds. I know something similar is going to happen during tomorrow’s heats. There will be an unknown athlete running the race of her life, preventing one of the top athletes from going through to the next round. That is why I won’t risk resting on my laurels. I am going to run each race at the Olympic Games as if it is my last. To compete in the final will be the ultimate dream come true for me, but there is a lot of hard running to be done before I can even start thinking about it.”

Nel, who’s best time is 54.37s seconds, is quietly confident that she has the ability to run a faster time, perhaps even dip under 54 seconds.

“My performance in London, where I ran my second best time (54.47s), was the near perfect race. I just need to tweak one or two little things in my technique then I am sure I will be able to run still faster times.”

It is the hunger to run that near perfect race that drives the Tuks/hpc-athlete.

“I am certainly not competing in athletics because I want to get rich. It is a passion. I really enjoy waking up each morning knowing there is a new challenge awaiting me. The fitter you get the more difficult it becomes to shift the boundaries to get faster. That is exciting. I am still trying to find what my physical limits are. I guess there is truth in the saying that it never gets easier, you just get better.”

Asked what she considers being the ‘wow’ moment of her career, Nel said it must be the semi-final at last year’s World Championships in Beijing.

“The odds were certainly stacked against me to qualify for the final but I did not let it get to me. I ran as if my life depended on it and I qualified. That was really ‘wow.’