Three-time Olympian Anaso Jobodwana says he is as fit as a fiddle and feels this is the year for him to rediscover his world-beating form as SA athletes start the cycle for the Paris 2024 Olympics next week.
“Yes, I think this is the year,” says the 29-year-old who first showed promise at Selborne Primary School.
“Training has been going well and I think I’m starting to get my rhythm back. Things are looking positive, my body is healthy and that’s always a good sign.
“Fully healthy, no problems, and I’m happy with how things are progressing.”
In a year of the African championships, world championships and Commonwealth Games, the experienced 200m sprinter wants to work hardest on the shortest sprint.
He will see how that goes when he launches his comeback bid and opens his season at the Grand Prix Series that starts with the Bloemfontein leg next week.
“I am doubling up this year. I’ve only got a few years left and I’ve never really tapped into the 100m. Every time it has been an injury. So I would like to get my 100m solid as well.”
Jobodwana had an Olympic showing he would rather forget at the Tokyo Games last year, finishing last in the 200m semifinal in 20.88 and failing to make the 100m final.
“I got what I needed in terms of what went wrong. It’s always a matter of introspection.
“When I got back from the Olympics I debriefed myself to figure out what went wrong and what I could fix going into the new season.
“Bad performances happen. It’s not the first time. They’ve happened to me before and it is just that this time it happened to be at the Olympics.
“I wanted to put it behind me and focus on the season that’s coming,” said Jobodwana, a 200m finalist in London 2012 and a 200m bronze medallist in the 2015 world championships.
Jobodwana has had time to reflect and is more determined than ever to rekindle his glory days, which include sharing a podium with the greatest Olympian of all time, Usain Bolt. at the 2015 World Championships.
“I believe so because my training is going well and my body is giving me that feeling of rhythm,” he said.
“I can tell that I am pulling it together where I can be on the world stage again.
“I want to make the Olympic final in 2024, but this year I want to be in the final of the 200m and that’s my goal. I think with the right decision-making and right people around me I can have a good year.”
The 2013 World Student Games 100m and 200m champion said he paid a price for not watching his weight and a lot of things didn’t go his way leading up to Tokyo.
“I’m usually at about 70kg or 69kg when I run. I ended up at about 78kg.
“I also had plantar fasciitis [an injury at the bottom of the foot]. So I couldn’t train back-to-back days or have any speed sessions and that affected how I was preparing.
“I would train one day and have to take three or four days off. I never got my rhythm because of that.”
The sprinter has an estate agency business in the US and admits he almost lost interest in track and field last year.
“I was thinking of stepping away because my mindset was not competitive and concentrated in track and field. That was after Covid-19 happened.
“I was trying to get my business going in the US and to focus on that.
“When I got to SA, about the time when we went to the national championships, my mind started switching back to track and field, but my injuries started to affect the way I was preparing.
“That is one of the many things that were not going well for me.”
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