Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 125, December 2019 | Page 57

Paul in his competitive days
she said, and her philosophy. I made the decision
then that when I matriculated, I would move to PE and
train with her,” he says. Their athletics relationship
soon blossomed, and even before he finished school,
Paul was regularly commuting between Cape Town
and PE in 1999.
A structured training programme showed immediate
dividends. “I won the Africa Juniors 200m that year
in Tunisia,“ says Paul, and he went on to race in
the senior World Championships in Seville, Spain
later that year, as well as the All Africa Games in
Johannesburg, where he managed to get to the semi-
final round.
For Paul, making the move to PE at the end of 1999
proved to be life-altering. Growing up, he had spent
most of his time either at boarding school or with
his aunt in Melkbos, as his parents had emigrated
to the UK to ensure a better living for him. While he
was lacking in nothing, Paul did miss the stability of
having a mother figure around him all the time. “My
parents did what needed to be done, as did my aunt.
We obviously stayed in touch as much as is possible,
but as I grew older, I was looking for someone whom I
could confide in and turn to. Magda became not only
my coach, but also someone who was there all the
time, a mother figure. The young man that was Paul
Gorries then, needed that.”
start was always a problem, and with the 200m I had
the opportunity to make up the time that I lost coming
out of the blocks. Also, Mark-Lewis Francis of the UK
was clocking 10.1’s, while I was sitting on 10.4, but in
the 200m I had gone 20.5, so we thought this was a
better option.”
involved with the former East German Athletics
machine, which to this day still has a cloud hanging
over its head due to doping allegations. Arbeit was
crucified by the South African press and left the
position in July 2004.)
The strategy paid off and Paul won the 200m final
convincingly to be crowned World Junior Champion.
In fact, if he had not “shut down” with 80m to go,
as he describes it, he could well have run a low
20-second time, but the race was done as soon as he
came out of the bend. He says that by then no-one
was going to be able to go with him, and he was
not willing to risk injury in chasing a faster time. “By
80m I pretty much had the race sown up, but it was
cold that day, so I did not want to pull a hamstring or
something in chasing a fast time. Our goal was the
title, and it was sown up, no need to do crazy things.” In spite of this, Paul still enjoyed a very successful
athletics career. In 2003 he won the SA title in
the 400m, but after that a period of injuries and
disillusionment set in, and he became quite erratic
until 2006, when he felt it was time to ‘buy into’ the
400m properly at last. He finished second at the
Africa Champs in a windy Mauritius that year, and
was part of the silver medal 4x400m relay team at
the Commonwealth Games. He ended that year as
lead-off leg in the 4x400m relay at the World Cup of
Athletics. “I ran a 44.6 split, but just as things were
clicking into place with the 400m, the season had
ended.”
Missed Opportunities As One Door Closes...
While Paul can look back on many highlights in his
career, he does now lament his “hard-headedness,”
as he calls it, and in hindsight, he admits that he
never reached his full potential. “I was headstrong,
and would always argue, with Magda and officials.
While on the track, it would all be good, coach and
athlete, but if we fought before, we would take that
up again after the training. And maybe, just maybe,
that played a role in my performances. Looking back,
I never bought into the whole athletics life completely.
I was rebellious, as in, I wanted to enjoy life. But my
mouth was also my downfall. I would call a spade
a spade, and this would irritate many officials and
administrators, which sometimes made the racing
experience a bit unpleasant. Now I wish I had followed
Magda’s advice and just run. I do have regrets.”
Paul also firmly believes that he could have dipped
20 seconds for the 200m, but feels that the move up
to the 400m so early in his career cost him. He says
that is the reason he didn’t commit properly to the
400m at first, and thus never really reached his full
potential over the one-lap distance either. “To this day,
I believe my best event was the 200m. The mistake I
made was, I ran one 400m in training, and then I ran
45.4 in a race. That was at the end of 2000, so come
2001 and I was doing the 400m. I believe that was a
mistake. I had just won World Juniors and was still
developing as a 200m athlete.”
However, Magda and Eckart Arbeit felt Paul’s best
event was the 400m and pushed him in that direction.
(Arbeit was at that time consulting to Athletics South
Africa and was a controversial figure, having been
His disillusionment showed after 2006, with
performances far below the level expected of
someone so talented. He only ran one race in 2008,
and was highly erratic in 2009, the same year that he
was incredibly outspoken about the then Athletics
South Africa (ASA) management. The 2009 World
Athletics Championships were mired in controversy
amidst the furore that ASA had not only mismanaged
the issue surrounding Caster Semenya, but the entire
Championships were described by many SA athletes
as a “boot camp for the athletes and a holiday for the
administrators.”
In 2010 he was off the circuit completely, and by
2012 he had decided he had had enough after yet
another run-in with athletics officialdom. As was his
way, Paul did not hold his tongue if he did not agree
with what was happening. That saw him take his first
tentative steps into the world of coaching. Magda was
heavily involved with the Sprint Academy in PE and
pulled Paul into it, so he received hands-on training
in coaching. “Magda was looking to go more into the
administrative side of things and started to groom me
for coaching. I was still competing, but by then my
heart was really no longer in it at all.”
Fast forward to 2018 and Paul took five-time SA
100m Champion, Simon Magakwe, under his wing.
Simon had been battling since returning to the sport
in early 2017 following a doping ban, and Paul began
by moving Simon from Rustenburg to Cape Town. He
soon began to regain form, and in 2018 he claimed a
sixth national title, followed by a seventh in 2019, all
under Paul’s guidance.
World Junior Champ
The team that South Africa sent to the World Junior
Championships in 2000 is still one of the best-
performing national teams at that level, winning four
gold, one silver and two bronze medals, and finishing
third on the overall medal table. Magda and Paul
had made the decision early that year that his target
was the 200m, and he would not do the 100m/200m
double at those World Junior Championships. “My
The late
Magda Botha
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