My happy place is finally getting crowded

Having nobody with whom to share your passion can be a lonely way to live. As a teenager, my mates were not interested in athletics, but as much as I tried to put my finger on the reason for my obsession, I couldn’t get enough of the sport.

I would attend road races with my mom just to catch glimpses of the winners when they crossed the finish line.

Eager to share my opinions on South Africa’s top athletes, I’d talk to anyone who would listen about my favourite runners, jumpers and throwers. Most of my reluctant audience, I could tell, couldn’t have cared less.

With no family or friends to share my interest in elite athlet- ics, I dived into every book I could find, and for a good few years my love of the sport never stretched much further than myself.

I would watch every race that was televised, often unable to sleep the night before the Comrades Marathon which, even at a young age, was more exciting for me than Christmas.

The magazines given to me by Linda Vogel, the secretary at Boksburg Athletics Club, were read so many times they eventually fell apart.

While my friends watched football and rugby, I would relive races I had never seen, relying on the writers at SA Runner magazine to bring events back to life which had taken place long before I was born.

Wesley Bo on

When the time came to choose a career, it didn’t take me long to realise my passion for athletics and writing could be combined.

I didn’t know much at the age of 18, but I knew one thing – I wanted to be an athletics writer.

Entering the field of journalism I got a rude wake-up call, realising there wasn’t much space for fulltime athletics reporters in the South African sporting environment.

So I covered cricket, football, rugby, tennis, hockey, netball, cycling, swimming and, yes, even jukskei. But very little athletics.

And after 10 years of plugging away at various media houses, trying to get my foot in the door, The Citizen eventually slammed it wide open for me.

For the first time a few years ago, I was able to focus far more on track and field and road running, and I got to watch athletics for a living. A dream come true.

But my timing could not have been worse, and for the first two years I wrote more about the problems affecting the administration of the sport than anything else.

This year, it seems, the planets have finally aligned, and not only do I get to live my passion, I’ve also had the opportunity of covering my favourite sport while our nation’s athletes have taken track and field to another level.

The interest has increased significantly, thanks to the efforts of the athletes, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting individuals along the way who share my passion. I’m no longer a lonely boy with a weird obsession.

I’m a proud athletics supporter, part of a growing group of South African sports fans, and considering the rapid improvement in performances on the track, our group is going to keep growing.

For a long time it was lonely being an athletics supporter in this country, and it is both a delight and a relief to discover I am not alone.