Tough as nails runner Sekgodiso eyes Mauritius
Just days after running herself into the record books last weekend, Prudence Sekgodiso was sporting long, multi-coloured nails.
“It’s difficult, to be honest,” she admitted after a training session this week, gripping a pen awkwardly as she wrote out the name of the Limpopo village where she grew up. “I did them yesterday. They’re too long, but I like them.”
She had just completed 200m sets and on her final sprint she’d clocked a 25.9sec personal best. She looked completely comfortable as she seemingly ran well within herself, pretty much as she did when winning the women’s 800m race at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi last weekend in 1min 58.41sec.
The field had included reigning world champion Halimah Nakaayi of Uganda, but it was the 20-year-old South African who dominated the race, winning by more than a second in front of Kenyan Mary Moraa.
It was the first time Sekgodiso had dipped below two minutes, but that effort made her the second-fastest SA woman over the distance, behind only Caster Semenya. It also ranked her second on the world list for 2022 so far.
And yet her arrival on the world stage might never have happened had it not been for some good fortune along the way.
Growing up in Ga-Kgapane Medingen, close to Tzaneen, she took a shine to running in primary school, inspired by watching Semenya on TV. “In villages they don’t take sports seriously. It was very hard for me.”
Her principal encouraged her and a local who works for the provincial sports department got her a try-out at the Tuks high school in Grade 9.
At the trial she finished last, but one of the coaches at the time, distance guru Michael Seme, spotted something.
“Apparently he [Seme] said ‘no, this child has got talent ’… I can say I was lucky to come this side because if I was still at home I wouldn’t be here.”
If getting to Pretoria required luck, climbing the ladder was the result of hard work; Sekgodiso is as hard as nails and there are times coach Samuel Sepeng has to hold her back in training. “She’s forever pushing,” he said.
“Even yesterday she had a long session. I was, ‘my lady, slow down a bit’. She was, ‘Coach, I am’, but the times were fast.”
And he may also have to temper her expectations for the upcoming African and world championships.
Sekgodiso, who took the 800m and 1,500m double at the SA championships in Cape Town last month, wants to make the podium in both events at the continental showpiece in Mauritius next month.
She recently cracked a best time in the longer race, going 4:09.88 in Gaborone. “My goal is to place in both the 800m and 1,500m. I know I can do it.”
But Sepeng offered a different perspective. “She’s young and we want to save and develop Prudence for 2024 and 2028. Not now. We’d rather build her.
“At Africa we’ll go for the 800m. World champs also. She will run 1,500m in a few races in Europe, but for major competition we will focus on the 800m.”
The athlete, after the Nairobi race, felt she can still go 1:55, a time that’ll take her to the top of the world.
Sekgodiso wants to use athletics to help her family, especially single-parent mother Lettie, who works in security at a shopping complex, and grandmother Makoma, who helped raise her and younger sister Audrey.
“The plan here is to make my mom proud and take her from that situation. She is the best mom, I like her so much because she is a father and a mother to me.”
In villages they don’t take sports seriously. It was very hard for me