Simbine’s advice to ASA

NEW sprint star Akani Simbine has called on Athletics SA (ASA) to try and organise relay teams early enough so they can be ready to compete for medals next year.

The 4x100m team was given insufficient time to prepare this year and as a result was unable to qualify for the Rio Olympics in Brazil last month.

At full strength‚ the team would feature Simbine‚ fifth in the 100m final in Brazil‚ as well as 400m Olympic champion Wayde van Niekerk‚ 200m world championship bronze medallist Anaso Jobodwana and Henricho Bruintjies.

Simbine‚ Van Niekerk and Bruintjies have run sub10-second 100m, while Jobodwana owns the 19.87sec SA 200m record.

“That’s a deadly team‚ that’s a really fast team‚” Simbine said in Johannesburg at a function organised by one of his sponsors‚ Panasonic.

“We have so much potential. We have three guys who have run nine seconds‚ we have one guy who’s done 10.1. That is a medal.

“It’s just a matter of us coming together training‚ making sure we stick around and making sure we get time to [prepare].

“I hope the federation and everybody see they actually need to think about it starting from now‚ not next year because next year is already late. They must start planning for us now.”

ASA started approaching the relay athletes for the Olympics only in May‚ by which time their training schedules had long been decided. –