On 30 June 1998, Corien Botha stunned South African athletics fans in Latvia when she ran 12.86s in the 100m hurdles. She was the first South African woman to manage to record a time of less than 13 seconds in this event.

However, not many athletics fans would have thought at that stage that it would take 20 years before a local athlete would again dip under 13 seconds in the 100m hurdles, but on 1 July 2018, in Switzerland, Rikenette Avenant (Steenkamp) set a new record, running 12.81s.

Another five years later, on 2 July 2023, Marioné Fourie ran 12.80s in France to set a new national record.

It is uncanny that the dates were so close to each other on the calendar. Botha did so on 30 June, Avenant on 1 July and Fourie on 2 July. It is also worth noting that two of the record-breakers (Avenant and Fourie) are local athletes affiliated with TuksAthletics.

Who knows what might happen at the end of this month? Fourie is currently in top form, ranking among the ten fastest in the world with a time of 12.62s. She has a personal best time of 12.49s.

Avenant, now the mother of a three-month-old boy, Johardt, is currently coaching. It should come as no surprise that young athletes are already benefiting from her knowledge and the lessons she learned as an athlete. Janelle Kirkpatrick from Menlopark High School won the 100m hurdles in 12.96s at the South African Junior Athletics Championships. It is a South African u.18 youth record. Avenant is helping her with her technique.

According to the Tuks Alumnus, he didn’t expect to start coaching seriously so soon.

“I enjoy it. Every athlete is different. The challenge as a coach is to adapt to each athlete. It is quite a new adventure. One of the things I quickly realised is that today’s young athletes are much more professional than I was in my early days. They are exposed to training methods that I only learned as a senior athlete,” Avenant remarked.

She believes that, while this fact is a good thing on the one hand, it could also degenerate into a case of too much too soon. She wants to restore the balance, because she believes it is important that young athletes stay emotionally healthy. Pressure at an early age is never good.

“When it comes to mental coaching, I try to give young athletes a vision that athletics is just a part of who they are as a person. It’s just hard to get young athletes to understand that. Probably because athletics is such a hard sport,” she explained.

Avenant believes the 100m hurdles for women is certainly one of the toughest events at the moment. A winning time of 12.20s has almost become the norm on the international stage.

“What is exciting is to see that our South African athletes are also becoming competitive in this item. At the moment, we have two athletes, Marioné Fourie and Tumi Ramokgopa, who can run under 13 seconds. But it doesn’t stop there. There are some incredibly talented junior athletes coming through. That is good, because the breakthrough of one athlete spurs the next. Just go and look at the results. I think the next big breakthrough in South African athletics could happen within the next five years,” Avenant commented.

Do you have more information about the story?

Please send us an email to bennittb@rekord.co.za  or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram