‘Swazi Bolt’ geared up for SA race
MBABANE - “I’m confident that the AGN race will boost my confidence.”
These were the words of Sibusiso ‘Swazi Bolt’ Matsenjwa, widely regarded as Eswatini’s fastest sprinter, who said the upcoming Athletics Gauteng North (AGN) 300m race set for February 18 at Pilditch Stadium, would provide an excellent opportunity to prepare for his races this year. Matsenjwa is set to compete in the AGN Meet at Pilditch Stadium, Pretoria. The stadium is located in the show grounds complex of Pretoria city, situated in the northern part of the Gauteng Province in South Africa.
Billed
The event is billed for the end of next month and will be Matsenjwa’s first race outside the country this year. The race serves as his preparatory course for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, which will be hosted in Paris, France from July 26 to August 11 this year.
“My preparations for the upcoming race in the next few weeks are going well, and I’m excited to test my progress and abilities.
I always approach any race with a growth mindset, aiming to improve my performance. With continued hard work, I believe I’ll be ready to compete at the highest level of international athletics and achieve better results,” he said.
Meanwhile, the country’s fastest man competed in the 2023 World Athletics Championships. This event was hosted at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, Hungary in August last year. The fastest man in the kingdom secured position six in the race, with a time of 20.88 seconds. Matsenjwa holds a national record and personal best (PB) of 20:22 seconds, which was obtained at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, in 2021. It was earlier revealed in our sister publication that no Eswatini athlete has qualified for the Summer Olympic Games for now.
Smash
However, that is no train smash, as even if no one does, athletes will compete by universality. Universality places are given to athletes from countries that struggle to secure slots in the Olympics through normal qualification channels.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said there were nine universality places for boxing in Paris, with five for women and four for men. Meanwhile, Eswatini Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (EOCGA) is set to spend E980 000 on the Olympic Games, to be hosted in Paris later this year. This is contained in the association’s mouth-watering E12 515 829 budget for the current financial year that began on October 1, 2023 and will end on September 30, 2024.