The 2022 South African national Track Cycling Championships will take place this week in Belville in the Western Cape and for Wikus Myburg from Pretoria there is a lot at stake during this event.

Track cycling experts are very excited about Myburg’s potential, after he appeared almost out of nowhere at the beginning of this year and made a huge impact on the Gauteng championship a few weeks later.

Until recently he was better known as a tennis player and coach. In fact, this former pupil of Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool in Pretoria (Affies) was one of South Africa’s top professional tennis players.

After school he studied for a year in Oklahoma in America, where he also played College Tennis. However, he left the College Tennis scene to continue playing as a professional for four years on the ITF and ATP tours until 2016.

He then decided to return to South Africa, after which he worked as a sports organizer at the St. Mary’s Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria and also started a tennis academy at this well-known school.

According to Myburg, he became involved in cycling after his radical conversion as a Christian believer in 2018. After this intervention in his personal life, he felt called to convey his testimony through sport. In the difficult Covert affected 2020 he decided to start cycling after intensive genetic tests, as the tests indicated that he could excel in this sport.

Although he did well as a road cyclist, particularly in the sprinting parts, the proposal was made to him to try track cycling, especially due to his slightly larger physique and special strength in his legs as a sprinter.

The rest is history. He participated in this specialized sport for the first time at the beginning of this year and immediately made a huge impact.

“I was fortunate to immediately make contact with the right people, such as Jean Spies, who represented South Africa at the 2021 Olympic Games as a track cyclist. He helped me a lot to find my feet in the new sport. It went so well that I was able to be crowned Gauteng champion in three different sprinting events on the track only two months later,” Myburg proudly told Rekord.

Because the 28-year-old Myburg only started cycling so late in his life, he obviously has to set very clear goals and pursue them carefully if he wants to perform at the very top level. For example, he must qualify for this year’s world championships in America to also stand a chance of qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Games.

But first he has to collect enough points at this week’s SA championship and other events after that to be able to participate in the African championship at the end of June this year.

His immediate goal this week is to achieve podium positions in both the Flying 200m and the 1000m time trail divisions. Then he will definitely try to collect as many points as possible in the Match Sprints and Keirin races.

Multiple World Champions titles and, of course, a gold medal at the Olympics, are eventual dreams that Myburg will pursue with everything at his disposal.

Sandra McIlwrath, a fitness and conditioning specialist from Pretoria who has coached top triathletes and cyclists in the past few years, recently worked with Myburg. She is one of the people who believe he has the potential to become a superstar as a track cyclist. Both his physical and mental abilities impressed her.

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