FORMER SELBORNE PUPIL HANGS UP HIS SPIKES
One of SA’s fastest-ever 200m sprinters‚ former Selborne College pupil Ncincilili Titi‚ has announced his intention to quit athletics
One of SA’s fastest-ever 200m sprinters‚ former Selborne College pupil Ncincilili Titi‚ has announced his intention to quit athletics at just 25 years of age after struggling to overcome what he called a medical problem.
US-based Titi‚ a member of the SA 4x100m team that set the 38.35sec national record at the 2014 Commonwealth Games‚ posted on Twitter that he was unable to invest “any more resources” into trying to overcome his injury.
“Time I hang up my spikes‚ focus on other things‚ I guess till further notice...” tweeted Titi‚ who in April last year clocked 20.00sec to become the fifthfastest South African of all time over 200m.
The only ones to have gone faster are Clarence Munyai (19.69)‚ Wayde van Niekerk (19.84)‚ Anaso Jobodwana (19.87) and Akani Simbine
(19.95).
He also picked up arguably his biggest title when he won the 2018 African Championship 200m gold in Nigeria in August to cap a very promising year.
“Despite several PBs [personal bests]‚ my past season was plagued by a medical problem. Just can’t figure it out‚ all these first world doctors can’t either [maybe I been seeing the wrong ones] but anyways I just can’t put any more resources to it at this time.”
Titi said he wasn’t expecting help from Athletics SA (ASA) or the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).
“Would be lovely if ASA or Sascoc would step in‚ but sadly that’s not my reality‚” he said.
“I do have other passions so that’s where my energy is gonna be going now.”
Titi‚ who won the SA 200m title in 2014 before heading to the University of Southern California to study public health‚ is a qualified pilot.
But he told the Daily Dispatch last year that he hadn’t flown since leaving SA.
“I need to get behind some Boeings before I get to that [possibly coaching athletes in the future]‚” he wrote on Twitter.
Titi wasn’t part of the SA relay team that lowered the record to 38.24 at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.