Okkert Brits picked up South Africa’s second medal of the World Championships when his clearance of 5,85m was good for the men’s pole vault silver medal in Paris on Thursday.
On the outside Brits looked disappointed with second place, his first medal in five appearances at the World Championships.
He failed to take part in the lap of honour with the other two medallists, but he soon let the facade drop.
”Gary Player [the legendary golfer] always used to say ‘the harder I train, the luckier I get’, but I think in my case it is the harder I pray then the luckier I get,” said Brits, who had not been previously known to be religious.
However, on Wednesday night, the spiritual side of Brits came to the fore.
”I was touching heaven today,” added the 30-year-old.
Perhaps the reason why Brits has undergone such a conversion is that two years ago he had given up the sport.
”I was totally burnt out,” Brits said recently, reflecting on why he decided to give up vaulting for a year.
He decided to start training again when his weight ballooned by 12kg and he realised that he had gone from being a pole-vaulter to a couch potato.
It has been a long, hard, road back to the top of his profession.
”This is fantastic but winning the Commonwealth Games last year was the big one for me. After all the hard work and suffering it’s rewarding to know that it’s now my time.
”Now I am going to focus on my next competitions and I will definitely be back in 2004 to try and win the Olympics.”
Lying in wait, though, will be Italy’s Guiseppe Gibilisco, the winner on Thursday, whose coach Vitaly Petrov has already produced one Olympic champion in the shape of Sergey Bubka.
”What he did was technically perfect and he’s a brilliant vaulter,” said Brits, paying tribute to the winner. — Sapa-AFP