ATHLETICS:Julian Drew
FOR Frits Potgieter it was never a matter of if but rather when he would break into the big time – and that moment arrived somewhat unceremoniously at a low key athletics meeting in Sheffield, England on Tuesday night.
Potgieter added more than two metres to his previous personal best of 61.98m in the discus with a throw of 64.16m that propelled him way past Athletics South Africa’s (ASA) world championships qualifying mark and into the ranks of possible finalists for the championships in Athens in two weeks’ time.
It was fitting for Potgieter that one of the people who has contributed so much to his progress was on hand to provide encouragement and join in the celebrations. Top British coach Wilf Paish – who prepared the South African team for last year’s Olympic Games – was so happy with the result one would have thought Potgieter was one of his own athletes.
It was at an invitational meeting for the New Zealand team and local athletes from Sheffield where Potgieter and two other South Africans staying with Paish in nearby Leeds got some much-needed competition. Fortunately for Potgieter he only arrived in England a day before the competition and didn’t have time to succumb to the lousy weather which laid javelin thrower Philip Spies and discus thrower Rhona Dwinger low with bronchitis.
“It was a hell of a competition in the discus and luckily the weather broke just before it started. I was encouraging Frits to use the wind and he threw magnificently,” said Paish. Britain’s Bob Weir won the competition with a new British record of 64.64m with Potgieter in second. He has now gone to Hungary to join the rest of the South African team preparing for Athens.
The one person who may still not know about Potgieter’s breakthrough is his coach Doep du Preez who is in Nairobi on an IAAF course for throws coaches. Du Preez has one of the best group of throwers in the country at Pretoria University and Paish used to spend time with them every Tuesday during the year he spent in South Africa.
Although the credit must ultimately go to Du Preez and his athletes, Paish acted as a catalyst and was able to consolidate on their ideas and point them in the right direction. “Wilf showed Frits different kinds of exercises to do in the gym to improve his speed in the circle. One of the criticisms of Frits was that he was slow in the circle and Wilf’s tips certainly worked,” said Potgieter’s father.
As a schoolboy Potgieter set South African junior records in the discus and shot put and when South Africa returned to the world stage he won a silver medal in the discus at the world junior championships in Seoul in 1992. While local athletics fans may have been eagerly awaiting his transformation into a world-class thrower in the senior ranks, in reality throwers generally only reach their peak at around 26.
The 23-year-old Potgieter has in fact been showing the kind of progress that indicates he could be an Olympic champion by the time Sydney comes around. In comparison to the distances that the world’s best throwers of today were achieving as they developed, Potg-ieter is ahead of all but one or two of them in his annual progression, and had he not been injured last year his move into the top flight would have come much sooner.
He also lost three weeks of training this February when he had his appendix out which threw him off track in his attempts to meet ASA’s qualifying standards in the domestic season.
Although for throwers and sprinters the difficulties of peaking are not as acute as for middle distance athletes, the fact that Potgieter could not go back to a strength programme and prepare properly for Athens means that South Africa will not see the Frits Potgieter that would have gone to Athens without the ludicrous constraints of our local athletics season.
Potgieter had to maintain his speed in the circle in the hope of getting an opportunity to qualify and therefore had to sacrifice a vital strength-promoting phase of his training. Potgieter of course will be happy just to be going to Athens at this late hour and should he maintain his form a place in the final is in his reach.