Fredericks sets his sights on Rio
After a frustrating time, due to an Achilles injury, the Commonwealth Games 400-hurdles champion, Cornel Fredericks, is looking forward to the new season.
Cornel Fredericks, the Commonwealth Games 400-hurdles champion, is not one to make bold predictions but he can’t help feeling excited about 2016.
When he starts talking about his goals, it quickly becomes clear the Tuks/hpc athlete has his mind firmly set on giving a good account of himself at the Olympic Games in Rio.
“If I do qualify, it will be only the second time that I will represent South Africa at the Olympics. As far as I am concerned there is no bigger honour than representing your country at the Games.
“I think I am on track to finding the same form I had in 2014. Since October, my training has been going really well. At the moment I have no injury niggles and that is important,” Fredericks said before he flew out to Bath, England last week, where he would be coached by Malcolm Arnold.
Arnold is a senior performance coach for UK Athletics. He has attended every Olympic Games since Mexico City in 1968 (12 in all) as coach for national teams. He has also coached athletes to more than 70 major medals over 46 years.
There is a good reason why 2014 stands out for Fredericks. It was the season when he could seemingly do nothing wrong. In 13 races, he only failed to finish in the top three once, and was victorious on seven occasions. The other time he was jus outside the top three in fourth place.
He won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games, the African Athletics championships and the Continental Cup meeting and finished third in the Diamond League standings.
“The season of 2014 was definitely when I made my breakthrough in international athletics. Up until then I was able to get into finals but I was not able to finish what I had started. Actually, my running career was seesawing from definite highlights to big disappointments. I battled for consistency from one year to the next, and it was frustrating. Then 2014, happened. I was able to win races going out fast or winning coming from behind and it gave me a lot of confidence.”
Unfortunately an Achilles injury kept the Tuks/hpc -athlete out of action for most of last year. He only competed twice, in London and Spain. Even though he qualified for the World Championships in Beijing, he wisely decided to withdraw than risk aggravating a niggling hamstring injury.
The Tuks/hpc athlete is confident that Arnold will get him back on track to win races.
“At 76, Malcolm is a hard man to please but he is also fair. I will be honest, it took some time for me to get used to his way of coaching but now I understand what he expects of me. He has even complimented me once or twice after a training session. It is not something he does often,” said Fredericks.
“One of the main things I am currently working on is my speed because I believe it to be essential if I want to be a contender in important races. There are also some small things in my hurdling technique that need some tweaking.”
Fredericks is not yet sure when he will start racing. So far the SA championships is his first major goal.
“I might decide to compete in one or two smaller races in England just to get a feel for racing again, especially since I did not really race last season,” he said.
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
- We have exciting news! We’re offering a free alert to help you always be in the loop. Send an email with the word ‘Subscribe’ to breakingnews@rekord.co.za to receive your free daily breaking news update.
