If LJ van Zyl (can win a medal at the Commonwealth Games it will be magic ending to an athletics career that spanned nearly 15 years in senior athletics.
The TuksSport/HPC-athlete is thinking to retire at the end of the season to bring to an end a career which saw him win three medals at the Commonwealth Games and two medals at the World Championships.
It was at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne that he won his first medal at a major international athletics meeting. The current South African record holder won the 400m-hurdles setting a personal best at the time by running 48.05s.
"The cherry on top for me during the 2006 Games was the 4x400m-relay. I still refer to it now when I talk at schools. The relay proved that no race is won or lost until you crossed the finish line. If you look at a video of the race, you might think there was no way that we could have won a silver medal.
"I was running in fifth place going into the home straight. I was hoping to pass going into a gap on the inside of the track or between two of the frontrunners, but there was no way through. The only option was to go wide. I can honestly say that over that last 50 metres I ran as I have done never before. Those two races at the Commonwealth Games set up my international career."
Van Zyl won his third medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2010 when he finished second in the 400m-hurdles.
2011 was undoubtedly the pinnacle of Van Zyl's hurdling career. In the space of just 95 days, he managed to break through the magical 48 seconds barrier on four occasions clocking the four fastest times of the year. To top it all, he won a bronze medal, his only, at the World Championships in Daegu and was part of the South African 4x400m-relay team that won a silver medal.
He admits that with age he started to mellow out as an athlete over the years.
"When you are young everything is about winning. If lost you felt like a failure. It was like full out war out on the track. Slowly you start to realise that athletics should not just be about winning. Yes, winning will always be important. And again yes making money is also essential. But being an athlete is part of a journey,” explained the TuksSport/HPC-athlete.
“Savouring moments on and off the track is for me equally as important as winning because no athletics career lasts forever. The friends I made from racing all over the world is like collecting firewood for later in life.”
However in spite of what Van Zyl said it would be a mistake for the younger athletes to underestimate the elder statesman in the 400m-hurdles during the Commonwealth Games. The hunger to be the best is still burning.
"To be honest, I love to race. There is something so special to duel it out with other athletes on the track never knowing whether you are going to win, fighting it out right to the end. That is what an adrenaline rush is all about. I think I got addicted while I was still a 'laaitie' racing the farm workers children over feeding troughs. The faster and more experienced I got the more I started to crave the challenge of a good race."
The other TuksSport athletes in South Africa’s Commonwealth Games team are Constant Pretorius (400m-hurdles), AkaniSimbine (100 and 200m), Lebogang Shange and Wayne Snyman (20km race walking), Wenda Nel (400m-hurdles).
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