Coaching Credentials

Tannie Ans was born in Namibia and started coaching athletics 49 years ago, initially working with her own children, alongside her late husband. She had been a sprinter and long jumper in her youth, but says it was

a far cry from today’ s standards.“ In my day we didn’ t know what spiked shoes were, didn’ t have synthetic tracks, and we had to dig little holes in the track when we wanted to start the sprints. We didn’ t have the facilities, equipment or opportunities that the kids of today have.”

The couple moved to Bloemfontein in 1990 when her husband retired and Ans then took up the head coaching role at the University of the Free State, initially working specifically with the Kovsies hurdles athletes. That changed when Hennie Pretorius left the club and Ans took on the 100m, 200m and 400m sprinters as well, and just recently the indefatigable coaching legend also added the long jumpers and triple jumpers to her training group as well. She says her group is normally between 26 and 32 strong, that she just loves working with the youngsters, who keep her young, and that she has no intention of slowing down or giving up her coaching responsibilities any time soon.

“ After Rio, somebody asked me that since I’ m 75, when do I want to stop with this nonsense? I found that very negative. As long as the Lord blesses me with good health, as long as I am able to think straight, as long as I still have the passion for athletics, as long as I still enjoy it, as long as I can still get the message across to the young athletes, and help them reach their dreams and goals, then I don’ t see the point of sitting in my house and becoming a raisin. So I said to him, you know, getting old is not the years you live, it’ s when you lose your dreams, goals and enthusiasm. As long as you have those, then you have a purpose in life, and something to look forward to. But if you lose those, then you’ ll have more than wrinkles in your face, you’ ll have wrinkles in your soul.”

Winning Combination

Ans began working with Wayde when he came to study marketing at Kovsies in 2012. Back then he was a 200m specialist who had caught the eye by finishing fourth in the 200m final of the 2010 IAAF World Junior Championships in Canada and also winning the SA Senior Champs title at the age of just 18. However, he had been plagued by niggly injuries, so the first three months of working with Ans saw him doing rehab for the latest injury, and then she switched him to the 400m event instead. It proved to be a masterful coaching call. Not only did Wayde stop picking up injuries, but he took his best time from 48-plus seconds in 2012 to 45.09 in 2013, then down to 43.48 in 2015 as he claimed the World Champs gold in Beijing with the then world’ s fourth-fastest time. A year later, in Rio, he went still faster as he bettered Michael Johnson’ s 17-year-old World Record and claimed Olympic gold.

Ans says that Wayde was just like so many of the young athletes that join her group.“ They all come to ask me if they can join my group and will I help them. Every one of them has a dream, otherwise they wouldn’ t come to me, and their dream then automatically becomes my dream as well, because I must maintain that intimate communication with them in order to help them. But what is most important to me, is that young people today are exposed to so much negativity, and things that can pull them down, so I try to not only coach my athletes in athletics, but also instil in them norms, values, discipline and self-respect.”

“ I am therefore very strict with my athletes. If I tell them to be there at a certain time, then they are there. Over the years I have unfortunately had to send a few athletes away, but that was for the benefit of

Images: Courtesy Ans Botha, IAAF, Twitter