As the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest concludes, a natural question arises regarding South African athletics: why do the country's brightest runners, who regularly attract attention on the world stage at the beginning of the year, show a decline in form at major late-season championships?
This pattern has become evident. The South African team was represented by six top athletes at the Ultimate Championship in Hungary, but only three managed to reach the final. Commonwealth champion Sinesifo Dambile took fourth place in the men's 200m final (19.91 seconds), while Heath Leotlela finished sixth (9.98), and Akani Simbine placed eighth (10.09) in the men's 100m race. Furthermore, the 400m star Zaki Nene, 800m contender Prudence Sekgodiso, and hurdler Marione Fourie were eliminated in the first semi-finals.
The situation resembled events at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow several weeks earlier, where Dambile's historic gold became one of two medals for the South African team on the track, with the second being a bronze for Nene in the one-lap sprint, as well as in the subsequent Diamond League final.
Even more alarming is the general trend in recent global competitions: the South African team returned home without any athletics medals at both the 2022 World Championships in Eugene and the 2023 World Championships in Budapest. Although the men's 4x100m relay squad won silver at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and the men's 4x400m relay team secured the sole bronze at last year's World Championships in Tokyo, individual medals at major tournaments have almost completely disappeared since the golden era of 2017.
With the 2027 World Championships in Beijing and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics approaching, the discussion about the causes of this late-season paralysis has sparked heated debates among the South African coaching elite.