Wayde lit the way on a sad day
DO YOU see the wings on your feet? Run like the wind, but faster. You will reach a point were you can barely feel your legs, that’s when you keep running. Run like you are running for your life down Soweto streets in June 1976. As if bullets are thirsty for flesh and when they quench that thirst you can’t afford to be first. Run like you are being tracked in a field. Run Wayde Van Niekerk, you were destined for greatness.
Not only did you break records, on Monday you also broke the internet and set social media ablaze with praises for your achievement and sheer speed. You became the top trending search worldwide after setting the men’s 400m record at the Rio Olympics.
Wayde, the South African air sang songs for you when a rush of patriotism took over the Twittersphere and Facebookville. Memes came flying in from all directions.
Michael Johnson, the sprinting great whose 17-year-old record you shattered, was left astonished. “It was a massacre,” he said.
Speaking of a massacre, we also came together to remember Marikana.
“We can name Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. But how many of us can name any of those who died at Marikana?” asked social media lawyer, @EmmaSadleir, in a tweet.
Most of us can’t, but we can still mourn the tragic deaths of the 34 miners shot and killed on August 16, 2012 and the 10 people murdered in the days leading up to the massacre.
On that koppie in Rustenburg, widows were made, breadwinners were lost.
Wayde, this is what I meant by bullets being thirsty. Lonmin miners were sprayed with bullets by police. Their blood soaked the soil and that sacred koppie is now barren, nothing will grow there – maybe 34 black roses so Mother Nature can remember where her sons had their souls ripped from beneath their feet in front of a firing squad.
Wayde, you and Caster Semenya are cut from the same speed cloth. Second place is not your thing.
Caster should be celebrated as a great athlete, not defined by arbitrary definitions of sex. She showed them fire on that second 800m heat on Wednesday.
When Team SA returns from Rio, they will notice a lot of change.
EFF leader Julius Malema confirmed that the party would not be entering into a coalition government with the ANC or DA but it would vote with the DA in Joburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.
He explained that both the ANC and DA were non-committal on the nationalisation of mines, land restitution, free education, nuclear energy procurement, municipal name changes and the removal of Die Stem as a national anthem.
Wayde, let’s talk about the “Ninja Turtle” tracksuits – they looked awful. Even Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula was unimpressed. He tweeted: “Our athletes deserve better.” He was right. Leigh Schubert, a Durban-born designer who designed the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics opening ceremony kit, said the outfits looked like something a Ninja Turtle would wear.
But Wayde, you showed that clothes don’t make the man.
On your return, kiss your medal and take a 34 seconds moment of silence. You were a beacon on the sad commemoration day of Marikana.