Wednesday, 11 April 2018

Golden Makwala of Botswana

Heykayjones April 11, 2018 Gold Coast 2018

Botswana's Isaac Makwala has achieved what he set out to do, winning his first major championship gold medal with a well-executed 44.35 in the men's 400m final.

The race also gave the southern African nation its third gold medal at a Commonwealth Games and it's fourth medal with teammate Baboloki Thebe pipping Jamaica’s Javon Francis to silver.

"I came here ready for this and everything has been going well since the IAAF World Championships," Makwala said after his winning race.

Bronze medallist Javon Francis of Jamaica and Botswanan's gold medallist Isaac Makwala and silver medallist Baboloki Thebe celebrate.

“I was a good footballer, and I was always up the right wing,” he laughs.

“I was so fast, it was difficult to mark me! I concentrated on playing football until I was 23 but then I tried out athletics, and I realised I liked doing a solo event rather than a team one. I felt that I could be good, so I decided to become an athlete.”

Makwala believes his late start in professional sport is the reason it's only now, aged 31, that he seems to be entering his prime. Last summer, at the Meeting de Atletismo Madrid, he became the first man ever to run the 200m in under 20 seconds (19.77) and the 400m in under 44 seconds (43.92) on the same day.

Usain Bolt was a star attraction at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. The sight of him anchoring Jamaica to 4x100m gold, and then dancing to The Proclaimers with the crowd, is one the Hampden Park spectators won't forget in a hurry.

But with the greatest sprinter of all time since retired, there’s a vacancy at the top and Makwala feels it will be filled by another Commonwealth athlete.

“My aim is to become the best, to move up, and be number one,” he says.

The 200m especially is wide open at the moment, and there is a chance for somebody new to try to dominate the event.

“There’s Wayde van Niekerk and of course the Jamaicans, who produce so many good runners. The competition is going to be really good. It’s an exciting time for the sport.”