South African 800m star Prudence Sekgodiso is running her own ...

South Africa has no clear favourites for medals on the track in athletics at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Tatjana Smith was always a favourite for the breaststroke events based on her times leading up to the Games.

Similarly, South Africa’s mountain bike bronze medallist, Alan Hatherly, came into the Games ranked second in the world and first in the World Cup series, and therefore stood a fantastic chance of getting on the podium in Paris.

For South Africa’s men’s sevens side, it took a combination of favourable circumstances – such as progressing to the knockouts as the eighth team out of 12 despite losing two of their opening matches – as well as playing above their talents when it mattered.

For South Africa’s track athletes at the Olympics, their paths to podium positions are similar to those already mentioned.

No individual South African is a clear favourite or even top three this season in their event.

The men’s 4x400m relay team contains three of the country’s best runners in the distance – Wayde van Niekerk, Lythe Pillay and Zakithi Nene.

They also placed second, behind Botswana, at the World Athletics Relays in May to book their place at the Games in a competitive time of 3:00.75.

Although a medal in the 4x400m isn’t guaranteed, it does seem like South Africa’s best chance at this stage.

Alongside them is the next tier of South African track athletes who are exceptional in their own right, but because of the quality of the competition they will need to be near perfect to reach the podium.

This includes South Africa’s flag bearer Akani Simbine in the blue riband track event of the 100m sprints, as well as the increasingly impressive Prudence Sekgodiso in the 800m middle-distance event.

Paris 2024 is 30-year-old Simbine’s third Olympic Games, having finished fifth in the final of the 100m sprints in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and fourth in Tokyo in 2021.

Sekgodiso, on the other hand, is a rookie on the biggest stage, with the 22-year-old running at the Olympic Games for the first time.

She has been a budding talent for a few years, but her world-beating talent really came to the fore this year.

Sekgodiso opened her international season with a victory and personal best at the Diamond League track and field athletics meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, with a time of 1:57.26. It was also a world lead in the middle distance at the time.

That run came two months after she set her previous personal best of 1:58.05 at a local meet in Pretoria.

Sekgodiso has run under two minutes on five occasions – every time she’s raced the distance this year.

A week after her run in Marrakesh, her time was usurped by Great Britain’s Olympic gold medal favourite Keely Hodgkinson in an ultra-competitive time of 1:55.78 to lay down the marker for Paris.

Sekgodiso, however, proved her first win on the big stage was no fluke by claiming a second Diamond League meeting victory in Oslo, Norway, at the end of May with 1:58.66.

Headed into the Olympic Games, only six athletes have gone faster than Sekgodiso’s first Diamond League victory time.

The joy of 2024 is a far cry from where Sekgodiso was in 2021, when she quit the sport completely.

Athletics South Africa (ASA) denied her the opportunity to represent the country at the World Junior Championships in Kenya after she tested positive for Covid-19.

Sekgodiso, desperate to represent the country at the Junior Championships for the first time, went for another test, which came back negative.

ASA then told her that if she tested negative in a third test she would be allowed to fly over and compete. Sekgodiso was the fastest under-19 women’s athlete across 800m that year and a favourite for the title.

Despite testing negative on her third swab, ASA went back on its word and decided not to take the then 20-year-old along to Nairobi.

After hearing the news, the youngster immediately announced her retirement from the sport. Her coach, Samuel Sepeng, brother of Hezekiel Sepeng, the former South African national champion and Olympic silver medallist in the 800m, had to convince the young athlete to change her mind and continue racing.

Fortunately for South Africa, Sepeng succeeded. And with a fire in her belly, Sekgodiso’s times decreased substantially.

The very next year she completed the two-lap race in under two minutes for the first time and, ironically, it happened in Nairobi, Kenya, when she ran 1:58.41 and won the Kip Keino Classic.

Although Sekgodiso only started to taste success on the national stage this year, she has been dominating locally since 2019 as a 17-year-old.

Despite still being in her early twenties, she has seven national titles across the 800m and 1,500m.

Although it might be premature at this stage, it’s hard not to draw comparisons with South Africa’s greatest middle-distance runner, Caster Semenya, who ended her career with 18 national titles and experienced similar local dominance.

Read more: Olympic Games Paris 2024

But Semenya, who hasn’t raced any middle-distance event since 2019 because of a change in World Athletics rules about female classification, turned her talents on at the biggest stage too.

Semenya was only 21 when she nabbed the gold medal in the 800m at the London Olympics in 2012, and she did it again four years later in Rio de Janeiro.

Sekgodiso, though, prefers to avoid the comparison. “I want to be the next Prudence… I don’t want to be the next Caster,” she said.

Sekgodiso and Semenya, despite their similarities, are different athletes. At this stage, Sekgodiso isn’t dominating her event so a medal isn’t inevitable in Paris, but she is good enough to be among the best three if one or two things go her way.

The defending Olympic 800m gold medallist, Athing Mu of the US, failed to make the American national team for the Olympics after falling in the first 200m at the US national trials last month.

Although that is unfortunate for Mu, it could be one of the few things to fall in place for dark horse Sekgodiso to sneak onto the podium in the final of the 800m on 5 August in Paris. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.