TRACK & FIELD
No What Ifs…
Tuks hurdler Gezelle Magerman never wants to wonder
about what could have been, so she is determined to give
everything she can to succeed in her athletics career.
– BY WILHELM DE SWARDT & SEAN FALCONER
In 2014, Gezelle Magerman booked her place in South African sports history
when she won South Africa’s first ever Youth Olympics gold medal, in Nanjing,
China. Having reached the final of the girls’ 400m hurdles, she looked completely
out of the reckoning until the final bend, then unleashed a superhuman final effort
to claim the title in a new SA Youth Record of 57.91. While she enjoyed some more
success on the track in the years that followed, Gezelle readily admits that there
were more disappointments than victories.
It would have been easy to quit, but the University of Pretoria sports psychology
student says a promise she made to herself prevents her doing so, a pledge that
she will not retire from athletics before she knows she has given it her all as a
400m-hurdler. “The last thing I want is to one day be haunted by the words, ‘what
if.’ The day I decide to put away my spikes for good, is the day I should know that I
have lived my dream.”
Olympic Dream
This resolve is an integral part of her self-belief that she can qualify for the Tokyo
Olympics in 2021, even though she knows she will need to shave more than two
seconds off her personal best of 57.75, set in 2016. Her confidence that she
can do it comes from training at Tuks alongside former World Youth and Junior
400m hurdles champion Zeney van der Walt, as well as being coached by Maritza
Coetzee.
“I don’t see Zeney as a rival, she is a friend who shares the same goal, to be the
best we can be. Since I started training with her, I have realised there is always
room for improvement. That is exciting,” says Gezelle. “Also, Coach Maritza has
changed my whole perception as to what being a champion should be about. I
used to be egocentric as an athlete – things needed to be about me, my success.
Being that way inclined led to
many an unnecessary tear being
shed. Coach taught me that
being self-centred is never going
to make me happy. It is the best
lesson I have ever been taught.
Another important thing I have
learnt is that if you do the hard
work, there is no reason to doubt
your abilities when settling in your
blocks to race.”
Emerging Talent
Gezelle’s rapid rise to athletic fame started
at the end of 2013 when the young sprinter
from Vredenburg on the West Coast (near Saldanha)
transferred to La Rochelle, a girls’ school in Paarl known
for its strong athletics programme. Taking advantage of the higher
level of coaching and competition, she qualified for the African Youth Games in
Botswana, where she won the 400m hurdles. “That was when I realised I had more
potential than I originally thought,” says Gezelle.
“I realised I just needed to believe in myself, because I had been training hard, but
was still struggling to break 60 seconds, so I went to Botswana telling myself, ‘The
next one better be under 60 seconds, Gezellie!’ And that’s what happened. I ran
a 58 in the semi-final, and a high 57.9 in the final to set a new SA Youth Record. I
was ecstatic!”
That win saw her selected for the 2014 Youth Olympics, where she went on to
claim the gold medal in spectacular fashion. “I actually made everybody stress for
the first 200m of that final, because I was coming just about dead-last. But then as
we started the last bend, I told myself, ‘Look here, Gezellie, this is the same bend
you’ve been training so hard in all those 150m sprints this week in training, so why
would you just give up now and come last?’ From there my mind switched, and I
won!”
Overcoming Disappointment
After Nanjing, more success followed as Gezelle won the SA Junior Champs title
in 2015, earned a scholarship from the Tuks High Performance Centre (HPC), and
won the CAA Southern Region Under-20 Champs title in 2016. That same year she
also finished sixth at the African Champs, in Durban, and helped the SA 4x400m
relay team win gold, but was disappointed with her performance at the World
Junior Champs in Poland. “I only made it to the semi-final, but then again, it was
my first year as a student, the biggest thing I had ever had to adapt to. Also, I think
I was trying too hard to prove to others that I could do it, and that was probably the
wrong way to approach it.”
Today, Gezelle says she is more focused, and still enjoying being on the track. “I
absolutely love the 400m hurdles. The challenge of being so utterly focussed on
overcoming 10 obstacles at speed excites me each time. The reality, however, is
that you need to be as strong towards the latter stages of the race as when you
started out. That is something I battle with, but Coach has got me working on it,
and I do feel I am getting stronger.”
Gezelle is not ready to
leave the track just yet
Images: Reg Caldecott & Wessel Oosthuizen/SASCOC Images
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ISSUE 132 JULY 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za