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The coach of sprint ace Akani Simbine, Werner Prinsloo, says he isn’t reading too much into his athlete running sub-10 seconds for eleven consecutive years—surpassing athletics legend Usain Bolt’s record.
He insists his focus is on maintaining Simbine’s consistency at that level.
With the World Senior Championships in Tokyo scheduled from 13–21 September, Prinsloo says the key priority is keeping Simbine healthy ahead of the global competition.
"Yay, look we don't look at those stats, there are guys out there that look at these things. When it came out the first time, I was sort of surprised because for us, we do season by season and we know what the goals are and the targets are for that season but 11 years going sub-10, it says a lot about his consistency,” Prinsloo said.
“It says a lot about the team around him making sure that he's always on top of his game, always ready to compete and stay healthy. I think that's the important thing."
The former ASA Coach of the Year adds that running sub-10 is no easy feat, even though Simbine makes it look effortless.
He stresses that achieving it takes tremendous work and unwavering consistency, noting that many sprinters only dream of breaking that barrier.
"To run a sub-10 is not [easy], you can ask any sprinter out there. There are sprinters who go their whole career without running one sub-10. Akani has been doing it for the past 11 years. There are no magic bullets to say, this is what you have to do, those are the cards that we have been dealt and we work with it,” the coach added.
“As I said, we didn't plan to say, we're gonna run sub-10's for 11 years, it's just, we're getting into the season, we know what the goals are for that season and we go after it and we plan for it and prepare for it, that's the main thing."
The 31-year-old started working with Prinsloo as a teenager more than ten years ago.
