The Tuks athlete, Sokwakhana Zazini, reached a new milestone last night by clocking a time of 48.73s in the 400m-hurdles to win a silver medal at the World Student Games in Napoli.
His performance is a massive improvement on his previous best time of 49.29s. It was the first time he ever dipped under 49 seconds. Zazini also set a new Africa and South African junior record. Equally impressive is that his time is so far the ninth fastest this season in senior international athletics.
The race turned out to be a near repeat of what happened last year at the IAAF Junior Championships with the champion, Zazini, and the bronze medallist, Alison Santos (Brazil), being the main protagonists.
Zazini was in the lead for the first 200 metres, but Santos never relented. Unfortunately for the South African, he nicked the last hurdle which led to him losing his rhythm slightly. It enabled Santos to pip him on the line.
The Brazilian's winning time was 48.57s. Patryk Dobek (Poland) was third in 48.99s.
Lucinda Liebenberg who coaches Zazini said she is not surprised by his performance.
"I knew the moment Socks got out of his starting blocks that he was going to be faster than 49 seconds. In the buildup to the World Student Games, he was consistently running low sub 49 second times.
"What truly amazes me about Socks is how he can get totally in the 'zone' when he competes in an important race. If you had watched his race, you would have seen by his facial expression as he was going over the last hurdle that he was racing to win. I think he could have, had he not knicked it," said Liebenberg.
The Tuks coach confidently predicted that he is capable of running even faster times. According to Liebenberg, Zazini did not have the best of starts to his season as he suffered from a back injury. He also had to adapt to her way of doing things on the track.
"My first priority was to get him adequately rehabilitated before he could start to race. At first, he was frustrated, but as he got to understand what was at stake, he totally bought into it."
Zanini's patience paid dividends. The first time he raced was at a Varsity Athletics Meeting where he clocked 51.03. From then on, as the Tuks-athlete started to regain his confidence and got stronger, his times continued to be faster with each race.
"He will compete in one more race next week in Europe before returning to South Africa. Then I will start to refine some facets of his technique. At the moment, Socks's most significant attribute as an athlete is his speed. But because he is so fast between the hurdles his running style is 'choppy' which means he is wasting unnecessary energy," explained Liebenberg.
"I want to see if I can change his stride pattern to be more fluent. It might be challenging to do so before the World Championship in Doha as there is not really enough time."
Still, Liebenberg is confident that he will give a good account of himself at the World Champs. She considers Zazini qualifying at least for the semi-finals as a realistic goal, but considering his big match temperament, she won't be surprised if he goes on to compete in the final.
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