#TuksAthletics: It is a changed Bruintjies who will line up to race the 100 metres in 2020

Posted on February 13, 2020

Are you still running was the question last year that got Henricho Bruintjies (a former South African 100m record-holder) to have a rethink on how his athletics career was playing out.
 
Next month during the Gauteng North Championships it will be a changed Bruintjies (Tuks-Puma) who line up to race the 100 metres. He has a definite goal. It is to prove he is still one of South Africa's best sprinters and that he has what it takes to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games. 
 
The Tuks-Puma sprinter admits the suggestion that he might be a has-been hit a nerve. He thought he was doing OK. After all in 2018 during the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, he had won silver in the 100 metres and was part of the 4x100m-relay team which finished second.
 
Given it has been a few years since he ran the times he knew were capable of. It was not due to a lack of trying.  For him, it had to do with being injured at crucial times.
 
According to Bruintjies once, he thought about the essence of what was asked, he realised that he was in a comfort zone.  
 
"I was training, but it was more a case of going through the motions. I lacked motivation. The words "are you still running" forced me to face up to reality. I have dreams, but I realised I was never going to fulfil any if I kept continuing on the path I was. 
 
"What happened to me has happened to other athletes also. At times being a sports star is tough. The fans are only interested in results. What they don't realise is that we are also only human. We have good and bad days like anyone else. The difference is that I got to put my personal problems aside every time I line up to compete. Fans pay to be entertained."
 
It takes a man to act up to his mistakes. Bruintjies can.
 
"It was really cool to run 9.97s in 2015 and set a new South African record.  I thought it would be easy to do so again. Unfortunately, I allowed myself to be sidetracked. For me, it got to be more about money and not on what mattered. That is being truly fast. I was the big loser for losing my focus."
 
It is now for him all about consistency. 
 
"My aim is to try and run 10.0s nearly every time I race. If I can do that I know it is only going to be a matter of time before the big breakthrough race happens."
 
The Tuks-Puma sprinter was inspired by Canada's Andre de Grass's performance last year in Doha.
 
"The whole of 2019 Andre had been consistently running times just faster than 10 seconds or just slower. At the World Championships when it mattered his consistency paid off. He won a bronze medal in a personal best time of 9.90s. That is what I am striving towards. It means I got to be the complete sprinter. One who is fast out of the blocks and can keep his top-end speed to the finish," explains the Tuks-Puma athlete.
- Author Wilhelm de Swardt

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