Injury keeps Fredericks out of SA champs
A serious injury will prevent one of Pretroia's top athletes to defend his national title at the SA athletics championships this weekend.
An Achilles heel injury will prevent Tuks athlete Cornel Fredericks from defending his 400-hurdles title this weekend at the South African Athletics Championships in Stellenbosch.
Because of the seriousness of his injury Fredericks will not be able to do any running on the track for the next four to six weeks and he was forced to cancel his international campaign. Depending on his rehabilitation, the earliest he will be able to race again could be middle June, maybe even later.
In spite of his setback Fredericks is confident his season will not be a total write-off. He still hopes to represent South Africa at the World Championships in Beijing.
Fredericks has won the South African title four times during the past five years. He made no secret about his disappointed at not being able to defend his title. “It will be the first time since 2005 that I will not compete in a national championship. It is one of only a few opportunities that I get to race in front of my own people and it is therefore very special.”
According to Fredericks he had been battling Achilles problems for the past two years.
“Last year it was my left Achilles that gave me problems. But because there was not really anything I could do about it except some stretches and physiotherapy, I continued to compete. At the end of my season I took a complete break from running for five weeks.
“This season my injury woes continued when my right Achilles started to become painful. At one stage it was so bad that even when I walked a few paces after waking up, I was in pain. A scan showed there were little tears in my Achilles. The injuries proved to me that I should listen to my body and not try to run through the pain.”
Fredericks is full of praise for the support from the Tuks High Performance Centre (HPC), the South African Sports Confederation, the Olympic Committee (Sascoc) and from Wayne Coleman who is helping him with his rehabilitation.
Apart from his injuries, Fredericks is also not sure who is going to be his coach after Hennie Kotze left South Africa to take up a coaching job abroad. There is a strong possibility he will be trained by one of England’s top coaches, but nothing has been finalised yet.
Last year Fredericks became the first South African athlete to win gold medals at the Commonwealth Games, the African Athletics Championships, as well as at the Continental Cup meeting in the same year.
Another highlight for Fredericks was finishing as the third-best 400-hurdles athlete in the IAAF Diamond League, which was in itself a great achievement.
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