Double distance for Wayde

25 April 2017 - 09:46 By DAVID ISAACSON
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Wayde van Niekerk anchors his team home in the mens 4x100m relay during the ASA Speed Series 2 at Free State Athletics Stadium on March 08, 2017 in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Wayde van Niekerk anchors his team home in the mens 4x100m relay during the ASA Speed Series 2 at Free State Athletics Stadium on March 08, 2017 in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Image: Roger Sedres/Gallo Images

Wayde van Niekerk is adding the shorter sprints to his competition repertoire, but one of the country's top middle-distance coaches is wondering what might happen if he were to move the other way.

Ian Harries, who mentored Mbulaeni Mulaudzi to the Olympic 800m silver medal at Athens 2004, believes the 400m world record holder could be capable of another world mark in the double-lap race.

"I wish Ansie Botha would just experiment with Wayde over 800," Vaal Triangle-based Harries told The Times in an interview.

With Van Niekerk's 400m record at 43.03sec, Harries' theory is that if he were to do the first lap in 48 seconds - faster than David Rudisha's 49.28 on his world record run - he would still have what the coach calls a "five-second protection time".

"Look at his build, he's not as big as the Americans. I think you'd see the first sub-1 min 40sec 800m."

When Harries, 73, started out as a coach 50 years ago, the world was still awaiting a sub-10sec 100m and the men's marathon best was nearly 10 minutes slower than it is now.

He attributes the improvements to two factors.

"Money. Athletes can sustain themselves through their winnings; more time to train, a longer life in the sport. It's important.

"And there's been a seismic change in coaching theory," added Harries, saying Arthur Lydiard, the former runner-turned-coach, showed that athletes needed to do more aerobic base training.

That's why Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute barrier in the mile in 1954, failed to win an Olympic medal, finishing fourth at Helsinki 1952.

"[He] was phenomenal on the amount of training that he did because he was studying to be a medical doctor.

"There was an extra heat and he couldn't cope with it. He was only good for one round and a final," the coach said.

Harries, who is still coaching, remembers his training sessions with Mulaudzi, who died in a road accident in 2014.

His favourite was three sets of three 200m sprints.

"Mbulaeni could average 23.8sec for the nine 200s."

Harries has a fascination with Everest, and has been to the Himalayas twice.

A former policeman, he recalls the day in 1967 in then Rhodesia that shaped him as a coach and participant.

"I ran out of the police station, turned right, went up a slight hill, down the other side to an intersection which must have been 900m away. I turned around and I couldn't get back up the hill again.

"So I went on a mission and that mission was, if I was going to coach, which I had resolved to do, I had to appreciate fully what an athlete would have to go through.

"For the next 14 years I ran almost every day," said Harries, who has done one Comrades and swum 16 straight Midmar Miles using breaststroke.

He dances a pretty good Zorba the Greek, too, as he did the night Mulaudzi won that silver.

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