Thando Dlodlo will be all “Striped-up” when he lines up to race the 100 metres for the first time this season as he joined TuksAthletics.

For South African athletics, it is good news. Every member of the South African 4x100m-relay team that set the new national and Africa record (37.65s) during the 2019 World Championships in Doha is now based at the same club.

Paul Gorries, the national relay coach, is also at Tuks.

It is believed that a well-trained South Africa 4x100m relay team can medal at the Tokyo Olympics or a World Championships.

According to Dlodlo he and Gorries got talking during the Doha championships.

“It is what convinced me to join Tuks. Paul will be coaching me,” he said.

The 21-year-old Dlodlo is one of the most exciting prospects in South African sprinting. Statistics will show that he is getting faster each year. In 2014 he dipped under 11 seconds for the first time clocking 10.96s over 100 metres – and he did so as a 15-year-old.

By 2019 he has improved his personal best time to 10.08s. He is one of only 13 local sprinters to have gone faster than 10.10s.

The Tuks sprinter believes he is capable of running faster times, even dipping under ten seconds. It is only a matter of working on a few specifics of his technique to gain those extra hundredths of a second.

“My best trait as a sprinter at the moment is my start. That is why I ran the first leg of the relay during the Doha World Championships. During the final, I got to race against Christian Coleman. For years I have been following the careers of the world’s best sprinters on television. To be running shoulder to shoulder with them is something I will remember for some time to come,” he commented.

Together with Simon Magakwe, Clarence Munyai and Akani Simbine, Dlodlo set the second-fastest time during the Doha World Champs heats’ clocking 37.65s. The South Africans finished fifth in the final running 37.73s.

Dlodlo is a real student of sprinting. With ease, he can recollect what sprinter raced what time when and why it was or is a significant breakthrough in sprinting. But it is Simbine and Wayde van Niekerk who he considers to be his local heroes.

“They proved that it is possible to be amongst the world’s best training in South Africa.”

Speed is genuinely Dlodlo’s passion. To him, it is not only about beating the stopwatch on a synthetic track. The power and speed of motor car engines also get his adrenaline pumping.

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