Three-time Olympian Anaso Jobodwana’s immediate focus is the Grand Prix Series that starts at Mangaung Athletics Stadium on Wednesday. He wants to improve his personal best of 19.87 in the 200m and dip under 10 seconds in the 100m.
After a disappointing Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan last year, the 29-year-old says he is fighting fit and wants to use the five-leg Continental Tour Grand Prix Series as a launch pad for his comeback.
The Eastern Cape-born sprinter is determined to rediscover his world-beating form.
It works well when some of the meets are close together next to each other so that you can get your sharpness and keep it.
— Anaso Jobodwana
“It’s a big ask but I always want to improve myself and so I would really want to go for my own personal best in the 200m, which is 19.87,” Jobodwana said.
“But I also want to get better in the 100m because it will do me justice for the 200m.
“My current 100m best is 10.10 and so if I can get 10.0 or a sub-10, then I will be very happy with this season,” he said, though he failed to make the 100m final in Tokyo.
Fellow Olympian Clarence Munyai clocked a personal best in the 100m before winning the event at the North Gauteng championships in Pretoria on Saturday, slowing slightly to 10.12 sec in the final.
Munyai went 10.04 and 10.5 in the heats and semi-finals to secure automatic qualification for the world championships later this year.
The Grand Prix Series will have meetings in Mangaung, Cape Town twice, Potchefstroom and Germiston between March and May.
The schedule for the 2022 athletics season is a busy one with the national championships in Cape Town in April, the African Championships in Mauritius in June followed by the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, in July and Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, in August.
“My focus for now is the Grand Prix Series and obviously the nationals because I have to qualify for the World Championships via the national championships,” Jobodwana said.
“Based on how I am feeling, I want to qualify for the world champs in Oregon. That one is going to be big and I really want to go.
“Then there is the Commonwealth Games, I really want to do well since I didn’t do that well the last time.”
Jobodwana has set up camp in Durban and reunited with US-based Stuart McMillan, the coach who helped the sprinter during his peak years that include sharing a podium with legendary Olympian Usain Bolt at the 2015 World Championships.
“I’ve been working with him since 2020. He was the coach who helped me in 2015 but then we parted ways. After the world champs in 2019 I went back to him.”
Jobodwana says McMillan had designed a training programme that he monitored remotely from the US.
“He basically sends me programmes to follow, and because I have always been able to train on my own it has not affected me much.
“I have someone who records my training sessions and coach Stuart will correct my mechanisms and say: ‘OK you need to focus on this and that’, and so far it has worked well.”
With the Grand Prix, national and African championships, world championships and the Commonwealth Games compressed between March and August, Jobodwana has plans to ensure his body goes the distance.
“The great thing about the Commonwealth Games and World Championships being so close to each other [July and August] is that the World Championships will be good preparation for the Commonwealth Games.
“Another great thing is that even though the Commonwealth Games is intense, it is not as intense as the World Championships.
“It works well when some of the meets are close together so that you can get your sharpness and keep it.
“My coach and I have sat down and sort of mapped out how we are going to take care of my body in between, so that we don’t go into the red area and risk injury.”
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