TRACK & FIELD
Rikenette racing her heir apparent as SA ’ s best , Marione Fourie .
Time to Call it
After a long but sometimes stop-start career on the track , SA Record-holder in the women ’ s 100m hurdles , Rikenette Steenkamp , has decided to hang up her spikes for good . – BY WILHELM DE SWARDT with SEAN FALCONER
There is a reason some pundits refer to Rikenette Steenkamp as the ‘ boss lady ’ of 100m-hurdles racing in South Africa . If one looks at her results on the World Athletics website , you ’ ll see that she was beaten only twice in 47 races on home soil since 2010 , and those two losses came way back in 2010 and 2013 . You ’ ll also see that she posted 29 consecutive victories in South Africa since 2014 . Along the way , Rikenette set the current SA Records of 12.81 seconds for the 100m hurdes as well as 8.17 for the indoor 60m hurdles , and she won four South African senior titles and one African title . Another definite highlight was winning gold in 2018 during the World Cup Meeting in London .
However , one can ' t help but wonder what more Rikenette could have achieved if she was not injured at crucial times during her career . Her career results also include notable gaps where she did not compete much at all
– in 2015 she seemingly only competed in one 4x100m-relay race , and in 2016 and 2022 , she apparently did not race at all . Of course , the World Athletics website only lists major competitions or events , so Rikenette may have raced in smaller , lower-level events in those periods , but an absence of results from top level competition clearly shows that she was not competing at the level she should have been . Still , the Tuks athlete says she has no regrets , now that she has decided to retire from competitive athletics , explaining that she has so many memories that will stay with her forever .
Need For Speed
The athletics bug bit when Rikenette was just six years old and she ran her first 60m race at Laerskool Menlopark . “ I loved it right away ,” she recalls . “ Also , my best friend , Tania Ras , was a phenomenal athlete and her family helped inspired me to fall in love with athletics . Her grandfather , Gert Potgieter , was the former 400m hurdles
Rikenette has dominated SA short hurdling since 2010 .
World Record-holder , and her aunt , Ilze Ras , held the SA Junior 100m hurdles record , and this family played a crucial role in my love for the sport .”
“ Tania and I always ran against each other in the sprints , but I later focused on the 100m hurdles , while she did the 400m hurdles . My first 100m hurdles race was in grade 10 , but I was a late developer and only really started performing well in grade 11 , as a 17-year-old . I then won my first SA Schools title , represented South Africa at the World Youth Championships , and in 2010 I had an awesome year , winning three SA titles .”
That ’ s putting it rather mildly , because that 2010 season was undoubtedly Rikenette ’ s breakthrough year . That year , she won the South African senior , junior ( under-20 ) and student 100m-hurdles titles , but she readily admits that at the time she didn ’ t quite realise what she had achieved . “ I was young and naive . I just wanted to run and make finals , but I was stunned that I had won the senior national title . That victory was the start of my journey ,” she says .
Starting from Scratch
Having won the gold medal at the 2014 African Champs in Morocco , Rikenette saw her career derailed by constant pain in her foot . “ After a
six-week off-season break in September 2014 , I started training again , but the slight pain in my right ankle started bothering me . Despite consulting various physios and doctors , the pain gradually increased . In early 2015 , I tried training three times a week at about 60 % intensity , but that was just frustrating ,
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