Luvo Manyonga’s minders have earmarked a Diamond League meeting in Brussels next month as his next major international athletics opportunity.
He might appear in Europe before that — they’re not sure — but the end-of-season Brussels meeting will showcase Manyonga to an increasingly adoring and intrigued world, they say.
The long-legged jumper didn’t spend long in Brazil after Sunday morning’s miraculous leap to land himself Olympic silver. He flew out with coach Neil Cornelius on Monday and was back in South Africa by Tuesday. On Wednesday, he was shooting an insert for Carte Blanche to be aired on Sunday night and on Thursday he will be back at — very light — training.
“We’re still in Brazilian time and struggling a little with jet lag,” said Cornelius.
Cornelius, who nearly missed Manyonga’s event because his Uber broke down on the way to the Rio stadium, so he had to run the rest of the way, said on Wednesday it was important that normality was restored as quickly as possible. “On Monday it will be back to a full regime of training. We have got to get things back to how they were pretty quickly.”
There were concerns in the High Performance Circle inner circle at Pretoria University, where Manyonga lives and trains, that the Olympics would overwhelm him. His international experience is limited and there were fears he would feel dwarfed by the magnitude of the occasion.
“I was saving myself for the final,” said Manyonga in response to a question about whether his fifth place in the long-jump heats was a calculated strategy. “I wasn’t scared. I just said, ‘Whatever you are, just be yourself’.”
As Manyonga returned to the country there was a flurry of media activity around him and those close to him.
John McGrath, the Paarl-based Irishman so crucial to Manyonga in his darkest days, is also being interviewed by Carte Blanche. He will doubtless tell of the hopelessness he felt two years ago when Manyonga wasn’t jumping and was in the clutches of a ravenous tik habit. But McGrath persisted and Manyonga now sits astride the world. A trust fund is being planned, with McGrath spending time this week to find the most suitable family member to be a trustee, and an international book deal is apparently also in the offing.