University of Pretoria (UP) 400m hurdles champion Wenda Nel (34) can honestly claim to have been there, done that and got the T-shirt to prove it.

In the 12 years that she has been hurdling, the UP athlete won bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and has claimed two African titles (in 2014 and 2016, she was the African 400m hurdles champion) and nine South African titles. Nel was also a World Championship finalist, and competed at the 2016 and 2021 Olympic Games.

Nel will put her spikes away for good at the end of her 13th season as a 400m hurdler. However, before she does, she hopes to “tick a few more boxes”.

“The plan was to retire last year, but throughout the season, there were so many uncertainties,” Nel says. “Even after I had qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games, nothing was certain. It felt like the Games could be cancelled at any moment. My last race in 2021 was an anti-climax, and I did not want to end my career like that. It would be nice to compete one more time at the Games and perhaps a World Champs. Who knows, I might even get to run a final. But before I can dream, I must qualify.”                                                               

Nel has had many highlights over the past 12 years. She won her first senior national title in 2010, and has dominated ever since. She was beaten only in 2013 and 2019. One of Nel’s best performances was her 2018 duel at UP with Zeney van der Walt, a former world junior and youth champion. As they headed towards the last hurdle at the national champs, she and Van der Walt were running shoulder to shoulder. Unfortunately, Van der Walt made the slightest of errors and Nel pipped her at the line, winning in 55.01s, with Van der Walt finishing in 55.05s.

Then there was that “wow moment” when in 2015, Nel ran a personal best of 54.37s seconds at the IAAF World Challenge in Beijing, China. “Anyone who wants to write about my race should use the word ‘wow’, because it describes my feelings perfectly,” she says. “Every hurdler hopes for that one perfect race when your stride rhythm is perfect and everything plays out as it should.”

Later that year, she came seventh in the 400m hurdles final of the 2015 World Championships in Beijing. The athlete’s best years in international athletics were undoubtedly between 2014 and 2018. During those five years, she counted among the 20 fastest in the world. In 2018, she was the ninth fastest. 

“Every athlete hopes to end their career with that one final outstanding performance,” she says. “But I am not obsessing about it. It is more important to savour every moment on the track. If I run the slowest time of my career in my last race, I will not consider myself a failure. I am at peace as to how my career played out. I consider 2022 as a blessing to my athletics journey.”