Magerman is living her dream
And she won’t quit until she reaches her goals
TWO YEARS ago Gézelle Magerman won South Africa’s only medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China, winning the 400m hurdles title, and now she is ready to take the next step in her journey towards the 2020 Tokyo Games.
After a relatively quiet 2015 she will turn her attention to the IAAF World Junior Championships in Poland later this year.
“I’m not looking at the Rio Olympics yet, it can wait but I am looking forward to the World Junior Championships that will be held in Poland this year,” Magerman said.
“My long term goal is to participate at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and hopefully run for a medal, but the first goal is to get there.”
The 18-year-old had finished her matric at La Rochelle Girls High in Paarl, and will be studying Sports Science at the University of Pretoria from this year.
Magerman has made the trek to the Capital City to join coach Irma Reyneke’s group of worldclass hurdlers that include South African record-holder LJ van Zyl and national women’s champion Wenda Nel.
“I had a choice between Maties and Tuks, there aren’t many 400m hurdlers on that side and here are more coaches and athletes,” said Magerman, who is a Tuks-HPC athlete.
“You need to go to a place where people can push you and not be in a comfort zone and now that I am training with Wenda I have someone to chase.”
Magerman will be looking to learn from the experience of Nel, who finished seventh at last year’s World Championships in Beijing with a time of 54.94sec while she also boasts with a personal best time of 54.37sec.
The youngster demonstrated her potential at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games posting a new SA Youth record time of 57.91 seconds.
Going into the Games she held a personal best time of 60.10sec before posting 58.57sec to book her place in the final where she finished 0.35sec ahead of her near- est rival Michaela Peskova of the Slovak Republic.
Magerman hopes to make her mark at the World Under-20 Championships which is coincidentally held in the same city where fellow South Africans Cornel Fredericks and PC Beneke finished fourth and fifth at the 2008 edition.
If the previous championships are anything to go by, Magerman will have to shave a few seconds off her personal best time.
The United States’ Shamier Little won the title two years ago in a blistering time of 55.66 seconds.
Magerman has ambitious dreams for herself and will be looking to make drastic improvements on her times.
“I am looking at a sub-56 time and looking at 2020 I hope to be in the range of 55 to 54 seconds,” she said.
“I need to work on my first 200m because it is way too slow and tannie Irma says it is the first half that is holding me back.”