Walaza touch and go for World Athletics Champs but Nene news more positive

Teen sprint star Bayanda Walaza’s participation at the World Athletics Champs in Tokyo is dependent on him passing a late fitness test, but the news coming out of Zakithi Nene’s camp is a lot more positive.

The two sprinters, both strong medal contenders – Walaza over the shorter sprints and Nene in the 400m – both picked up hamstring injuries in the buildup to the showpiece from September 13 to 21. 

Walaza pulled up clutching his hamstring during the 100m at the Zurich Diamond League Final on August 25. Nene picked up a hamstring strain during the warmup for the 400m at the Hungarian Athletics Grand Prix meeting in Budapest on August 12 and pulled out of the race.

Both athletes no doubt embarked on an intensive rehabilitation programmes in an effort to get them ready for the world champs, and both were included in the SA squad.

Nene had the benefit of a longer rehabilitation period, and it seems to have borne fruit.

“It’s been a trying period,” Nene’s coach, Victor Vaz, admitted to Independent Media Sport exclusively on Friday morning. “But, as they say, all is well that appears to end well. 

“He has reacted very well to the rehabilitation. We’ve thrown the kitchen sink at him –  hyperbaric chambers, fascial specialists, and physios. He has come through it like a star and he was on fire with his running the last four or five days. He was as fast, if not faster than when he left for Europe (earlier in the season).

“I said to him the other day, ‘I think you can win the world champs’. And in typical Zak style, he said, ‘I think so too’. He’s very positive and he has a bounce in his walk.”

Vaz expects Nene’s strongest challenge to come from Jackery Patterson of the US, who won the Diamond League Final in Zurich. The runner himself has tipped Olympic silver medallist Matthew Hudson-Smith of Great Britain to also be in the mix.

Another challenge will be taxing nature of the competition, which features heats on September 14, the semi-finals two days later, and the final on September 18.

The news that Nene is “firing on all cylinders” will be welcomed by South African athletics fans already worried about Walaza. His inclusion in the 49-member squad selected for Tokyo was  tempered by Athletics South Africa’s announcement that an “official pronouncement would only be made after the ASA medical team had the chance to evaluate the extent of Bayanda’s injury”.

A potential pointer to the severity of the injury was in the parred down programme for the young sprint sensation. The ASA team announcement this week listed the men’s 100m in Tokyo as Walaza’s only event. A fully fit Bayanda would also run in the 200m and be part of the 4X100m relay team, with whom he won silver at last year’s Paris Olympics and gold at this year’s World  Athletics Relays in China.

South Africa still has plenty of quality sprinters, with veteran Akani Simbine among the world’s best over 100m this season, yet the absence of Walaza will rob the team of a special talent. Fingers will be crossed that the winner of the sprint double at the recent World University Games we be able to take his place in the starter’s blocks in Tokyo.

The first group of athletes left from OR International Airport on Friday, with a second group leaving on Monday.