When Wayde van Niekerk returned from winning a 400-meter gold medal at the World Championships in Beijing last year, only his mother Odessa was at the airport to welcome him home.
Despite this monumental achievement, he was little known outside of athletics circles. Twelve months on, he is a star on a meteoric rise and will head to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August among South Africa’s leading medal hopefuls.
Van Niekerk already holds a special piece of history as the only person to run under 10 seconds in the 100 meters, sub-20 in the 200 meters and below 44 in the 400 meters, but will focus on just one of those in Rio.
“I’m only looking to compete in the 400-meters, in the future I will look at other events. I want to get myself a solid medal and then take it from there,” Van Niekerk tells FORBES AFRICA.
Despite his impressive times, in reality his chances of medals in the other events would be very slim and he would stand next to no chance of gold competing against the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, in the two shorter distances.
<div id="attachment_4972" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4972" class="size-medium wp-image-4972" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-485252836-300x219.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="219" />BEIJING, CHINA &#8211; AUGUST 26: Wayde Van Niekerk of South Africa crosses the finish line to win gold in the Men&#8217;s 400 metres final during day five of the 15th IAAF World Athletics Championships Beijing 2015 at Beijing National Stadium on August 26, 2015 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)</div>
Van Niekerk has already cleared a number of hurdles in his life, including a premature birth that left him fighting for his life, and he believes he can improve those times in the future.
“I believe I still have a lot more in the tank, I’ve just started racing against the best in the world,” he says. “But records are not my goals, I want to win for South Africa.”
“I am excited to show the world that South Africa belongs to be there among the world’s greatest sporting countries.”
Sitting with Van Niekerk, he cuts a determined and focused figure, confident but also humble.
He is, in a way, living the life his mother, now remarried after the deterioration of her relationship with his father, never had due to apartheid. Like her son, she was a talented sprinter competing under the banner of the non-racial South African Council on Sport (SACOS).
Whether she could have made an impact on the international stage is conjecture, but she was denied the chance to try. Van Niekerk says that knowledge drives him to succeed, hinting too that his career has healed a rift between his parents.
“What gives me an extra push is my family, the people who have played a role in getting me to where I am today. Running in my family’s name and representing them is very important to me. More recently having the whole country behind me has been great too.”
“My mom and my dad are super supportive. I appreciate the opportunity we have as a family and I’m grateful that it has brought a sense of togetherness to my family.”
“It’s got my family back together and supporting me, we are not thinking about the past but only the future. This is our moment and I am trying to make each and every one of them proud.”
Tears well in his eyes as he relays the story of his birth, at just 900 grams, and the immediate aftermath that was torture for Odessa.
“Every day she woke up, she wasn’t sure I would be alive. It makes me emotional that my mother had to go through that.”
It’s the reason Van Niekerk donated around $30,000 of his prizemoney from winning the Sportsman of the Year at the 2015 South African Sports Awards last November to the Groote Schuur Hospital’s neonatal unit, where he spent time in an incubator in 1992.
“My contribution is me trying to help others,” he says.
Life may have started out tough for Van Niekerk, but things turned when he attended famed sports school Grey College in Bloemfontein.
“Grey College created the environment for me to succeed. I had to push myself but the school aspires to sporting excellence and I am grateful for the opportunity to have gone there.”
He emerged as a potential 400-meter champion in 2013 when he broke the South African record, and then took silver at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow a year later. It was not until his gold in Beijing that the world really started to take notice though.
“I’m very confident and comfortable in the position I’m in. I’m excited to see what lies ahead of me,” he says. “I cherish every single medal I have. I’ve got this opportunity to go out there and live out my dreams and achieve as much as I can by doing what I love.”
“When it comes to the Olympics it’s another opportunity for me to tick off another title in my career.”
Van Niekerk, who has the fourth fastest time ever in the 400-meters of 43.48, will compete in Rio against LaShawn Merritt of the United States and Kirani James of Grenada.
James has run the quickest time this year of 44.08, but Van Niekerk is just 0.03 off that time in 2016.
“I doubt any of the top three guys are going to Rio not to win the gold medal, that is certainly my vision and goal for the Olympics,” he says. “I am not thinking about any other medal at the moment, but obviously I need to go there healthy and put in my best performance.”
His chances were boosted by the opportunity to train with Bolt and fellow sprinter, Yohan Blake, in Jamaica in June.
“I feel I can learn a lot from them and can improve myself as an athlete,” he says.
Van Niekerk has also welcomed the decision of the International Olympic Committee to re-test drug samples from previous Olympics to root out those who have used banned substances.
“It’s good to know they are going out there and digging out the guys who have been cheating. It’s not a nice feeling knowing you are giving your all out there and somebody else is cheating.”
The Cape Town-born speedster admits he remembers very little of his races, but whatever happens in Rio, he can have no regrets.
“The race itself is a blank experience, I only remember the end. All stresses disappear right there. It’s about me giving my everything and leaving it all there on the track.”

Fast, Furious and lucky to be alive

For 17 days, Rio de Janeiro will be the home to more than 10,000 athletes competing in the first Olympic Games on South American soil. It will also be the home of scores of African athletes, across 42 sports, hoping to claim one of 4,924 medals up for grabs.
Rio marks the second Olympics where social media will play a key role; London 2012 brought in 10 million tweets a day and was named the first social media Olympics. The International Olympic Committee expects of 3.6 billion viewers, of which 3 billion will be watching from their smartphones.
On this new technology will be one of the oldest sports. Golf will be returning after a 112-year absence. Another comeback sport will be rugby Sevens; the 15-man version of the game was last featured in Paris 1924, when the United States won gold.
With the beautiful sport comes the ugly – the finances. Brazil is suffering its worst recession in decades with inflation of 11%, reports Reuters. Protestors criticize the $9.6 billion price tag – which may rise even higher – two years after forking out $15 billion on the 2014 Fifa World Cup.
Olympic hosts have a long track record of breaking their budgets by an average of 176%, says a report by University of Oxford in 2012. This means Brazil could be looking at bill of $17 billion. The last Olympics in London cost an estimated $12.7 billion but the world’s most expensive Games was the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which cost $51 billion.
Among the Africans competing for gold, at the cost of billions, is 22-year-old Nigerian woman freestyle wrestler Odunayo Adekuoroye.  You’ll find her story on page 20.
FORBES AFRICA also looks at the grace and controversy of Kenya’s runners.
Get the inside story of our FORBES AFRICA columnist, Kirsty Coventry, who is in Rio. We’ve also got the fastest man in 400 meters and an old man of the sea who saw his Olympic dreams die and come back to life. We look to the future African hopeful, William Mokgopo, who plans on biking his way to the top at Tokyo 2020.

Hopes, Dreams And Rising Costs

In August, 10,500 athletes from 206 countries will be at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian city will play host to 42 sporting events, including the recently added golf and rugby sevens. Over the past four years I have been preparing for my swimming events. This equates to about 4,500 hours for a one to two-minute race. The Olympics is the biggest sporting event on the planet and hopeful Olympians around the world are in their final leg of preparations.
At this stage, athletes should have their foundations built and be fine tuning their training. There would have been large inconsistencies in previous years because of the many adaptations being made to find the big improvements. These last months should see more consistency as smaller, more refined, changes are made as coaches try and squeeze out every possible improvement in their athletes. As the consistency develops, so too does a strong and stable mind – a strength every Olympian is going to need. Persistent repetition in training will help create this consistency as well as build trust in themselves, which the athlete will need to prevent ‘choking’ – the word used to describe an increase in nerves, self-doubt and negative thinking. To get to this Olympic level there should be zero negativity in the mind of the athlete, coach or any other people surrounding the athlete. This is the responsibility of the athlete and the biblical story of Nehemiah highlights how important this is.
Nehemiah was a cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes. At a time when there were constant fears of plotting and intrigue, serving drinks at the royal table was an esteemed position because of the trust the king places on that person. When Nehemiah learned that the walls of Jerusalem needed rebuilding he asked the king for permission to repair the wall. Nehemiah made it his responsibility. He knew he couldn’t do it alone so he recruited reliable people who shared in the same vision as him. When others found out that they were going to rebuild the walls, Nehemiah and his team were mocked and ridiculed. When their enemies saw that these walls were being built, they set out to attack and destroy their work. However, the people Nehemiah had surrounded himself with prevented these attacks, which meant the walls continued to be built with little interruption.
Nehemiah trusted the people he surrounded himself with and refused to spend time on any issues that deviated from his goal. As important as it was to finish the wall, and as successful as Nehemiah became in doing so, he never undermined his values or integrity. Athletes are constantly faced with pressure from media, coaches, parents, friends as well as their own expectations. I have always surrounded myself by reliable and honest people, but with the Olympics drawing closer many athletes may feel they need to do ‘whatever it takes’ to win, even if that means doping or cheating. As important as winning is, a true athlete’s fundamental principle is to see how far their body can be pushed without cheating – this is the essence of being an Olympian.
Qualifying for the Olympics is a major milestone and the athlete gets to perform at the highest level in their sport. Too many athletes think that when the closing ceremony is performed and the final curtain is drawn their work is complete. But, just as Nehemiah used his success and experience from rebuilding the wall to continue benefiting the people of Jerusalem, it is also our responsibility to share our success and experience with others so they will become stronger and continue the cycle of promoting a better future for others.

How To Keep Your Head Above Water  Without Being a dope

It was a bright, sunny day when a fleet of 36 yachts left the shores of Cape Town, South Africa, for Brazil in the 2014 Cape to Rio race. One of the yachts, Investec Ciao Bella, has the most unlikely crew; it’s manned by an entire family, the Robinsons. Unlike many professional competitors, their idea of a family holiday consists of a month ploughing through the cold ocean, ducking under flying fish, gawking at glowing dolphins and watching out for floating containers as deadly as icebergs.
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In January, the family left African shores sporting shirts, short-sleeved vests and plenty of sunscreen. Little did they know they would sail in 60 knots of wind and 8-meter swells; a storm no-one was expecting was on the horizon. It claimed one man’s life and crippled a third of the fleet.
“If you look at the weather imaging from that day all you will see is this giant eye of cloud. And we sailed straight into it,” says Mike Robinson.
In 2011, Mike and his wife Gill, sons Ricky (23), Brennan (22), and Ryan (14) with daughters Kathryn (25) and Michaela (10) and their nephew Bradley (19) came second in the race.
The storm hit a day into the race. The swells were massive, the wind strong enough to rip your sail. The Ciao Bella struggled in churning seas which changed direction. Brennan and Ricky, the most experienced yachtsmen held the helm for hours on end. The rest supported them, changing sails at a moment’s notice and sliding on deck in the sleeting rain.
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“It was a heavy night. It was the beginning of the race and some of us were predictably seasick. Everyone had a bit of a wobble except for my wife, Gill. When the weather got tough she was the only one standing and she took over the cabin. She made sure people got hot chocolate and that everyone’s harnesses and clothes were ready for the changes in shifts,” says Mike.
The Robinson’s sailed through the eye of the storm and launched out the other end with the wind at their backs, taking a commanding lead. They were exhausted and decided to take a 12-hour rest. The decision, says Mike, ultimately cost them the race.
“We were well out in the front, ahead of the other boats. If we had kept with it we would have had a strong wind all the way to Rio,” he says.
Other boats were not as lucky. The yacht Bille, registered from Angola, reported that their crew member, António João Bartolomeu, died and two other crew members were injured. Mike first heard of the news during a live radio interview.
“We were blissfully unaware of the drama. It was a rough ride but we managed it well. It was the Wednesday after the race began. I fumbled through the interview. It turned out it was a storm of massive proportions, the likes seen in the serious sea races, not the Cape to Rio,” he says.
South Africa’s National Sea Rescue Institution (NSRI) reported eight-meter swells and 60-knot gale force winds. Three boats were towed back to Cape Town. The Black Cat reported being set adrift after losing its rudder; Isla took on water in the engine compartment and had an electrical fire; and on the AVA, two of their four crew members were injured and activated their emergency satellite beacon. According to Mike, a third of the fleet had been forced to retire.
“It was no longer a family get-together to sail. This was something unfathomable. Usually when you get to Rio there is incredible comradery. This time, there was the sense that there was one person who should have made it, but didn’t,” he says.
It took the Robinsons 21 days to travel 5,500 kilometers. It was almost twice the length of time the professional 10-man Maserati took to take the line honors, in 11 days. Still, Mike was happy to place fifth overall, the second South African boat to arrive in Rio.
“We were competing against boats that had more carbon than a coal mine,” says Mike, referring to the newer models made of carbon graphite which are lighter and faster than the Ciao Bella’s fiberglass hull.
“The first three boats were made of full-time racing outfits. We’ve got only one world champion racer and he’s 17 (Ryan). We traveled from Cape Town to the oil fields of Rio just on the power of the wind… We did all this with seven people on a 35-foot yacht, one of the smallest in the fleet. That’s amazing,” says son Ricky, now 26 years old.
Unlike their first adventure, the Robinsons were unusually disaster free, says Mike. In the 2011 Cape to Rio, their engine failed leaving them without fresh water. They also sailed the whole way with a cracked rudder.
The family’s life on board is littered with unusual moments. Flying fish smack people on deck and dolphins swim in their wake. Mike says there is nothing more majestic than an albatross in the trade winds. He also cannot forget the beauty of the Atlantic Ocean.
“There is not a color that can describe it. We think it’s a regal blue; as far as the eye can see and deep into the depths. It’s all encompassing. The wave movement becomes regular. Life becomes this rhythm. You cook to a rhythm, you sleep to it. When the sun sets the sea becomes velvet and the Milky Way goes from the left side of the horizon to the right. Behind you, the moon rises on a silver pathway,” he says.
It’s here, thousands of miles from land, where the race begins in earnest in the trade winds. At the helm Ricky, Brennan and Ryan compete to see who can go the fastest and the furthest in two-hour shifts. The smell of pancakes and bacon floats onto the deck. Katheryn and Michaela sing bad parodies and the brothers argue about philosophy during their 3AM shifts.
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“I spent an entire night with Ricky and I don’t think we said more than two words to each other. We just experienced the moment in each other’s company,” says Mike.
As the weather warms up closer to Rio, the Robinson’s rations thin. The first to go are zoo biscuits, valued higher than gold, until a bout of foul weather reveals a stash, hidden in the rain jackets.
“Brennan was the most likely candidate, it was his jacket. But Ryan had also been using it. Michaela is known for hoarding her sweets so it could have been her. We just didn’t know,” says Mike.
The debate raged into the night. Accusations flew across the rocking yacht. The family posted a blog asking for help to solve the crime. In response, the other yachts, instead of helping to solve the mystery, tried to barter for the treats.
“Zoo biscuits are a precious commodity on the ocean. Sure, Oreos and ginger snaps are fine. But Zoo biscuits are lapped up, especially on the Ciao Bella. We got offers of fish in exchange. But no fish is worth a Zoo biscuit, no matter how fresh,” says Mike.
The journey ends at Rio, surrounded by huge volcanic cliffs clustered with mansions. The statue, Christ the Redeemer, stands out on the horizon. It might not have been the first place prize for the Robinsons but their trip was a family vacation like no other.

Fish? Not Worth A Biscuit

It is harrowing watching a crane move a two ton yacht onto a truck. Ropes crack under the strain. You imagine the fibreglass hull will shatter at any moment. Professionals may struggle with the job, so consider a family of seven with their thirteen-year-old daughter, Michaela, driving the crane. This feat of engineering is the first step of a Robinson family holiday that most would find hard to imagine.
“It’s been impossible to get her out of the driving seat; at least if she doesn’t make it as a sailor she can always work the crane,” says father Mike Robinson.
The Robinsons are as much a crew as a family. For them a Christmas holiday is a month ploughing through the cold ocean, ducking under flying fish, gawking at glowing dolphins and watching out for floating containers as deadly as icebergs. All this in a 35-foot yacht, that cost them $24,000 to repair as well as a case of beer for the charter fee, on Africa’s most famous sea voyage, the Cape to Rio.
Once every three years, yachts of all shapes and sizes take to the high seas in a bid for glory. It is a downwind race stretching 5,500 kilometers from Cape Town in South Africa to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
“It’s not hard to find South America. You just go toward the setting sun,” jokes Mike.
It may seem unlikely but the Robinsons have a good chance of winning. In 2011, Mike and his wife Gill, sons Ricky, Brennan, and Ryan with daughters Kathryn and Michaela and their nephew Bradley came second on board the Ciao Bella, the smallest yacht in the competition.
What’s more, the Robinsons managed to sail all the way with a hole in their rudder after they collided with a submerged container. They say the greatest danger comes lurking, sinister as a snake, under the surface. The Robinsons were lucky, floating containers could easily rip a hole in your hull, says Mike.
“They fall off the tops of those huge charter ships, and you will never see them. They float just under the surface,” says Brennan.
While swimming, the Robinsons found their rudder was missing a large chunk. Ricky believes it started as a hairline crack that opened after traveling for a few days at high speed on the sea. You could say it took a knock to their chances of winning.
“All the hotshot sailors from the Cape were saying we were just a family from Carletonville, from the Vaal, that we knew nothing about ocean racing,” says Michaela.
Their critics were wrong. The Robinsons had trained together for years. The family grew up with the wind in their face and a rope in their hand. Brennan, Ricky and Michaela have all sailed for South Africa. The Robinson’s garage holds testament to this, it is a boneyard of boats, masts and sails. The cars are parked under a tree.
The Ciao Bella lies in their backyard in Carletonville, a small mining town that is a two-hour drive from Johannesburg and hundreds of miles from the ocean. The yacht is on its way to the sea, to race in the Cape to Rio, once again. This time round they are aiming to win it, with a new rudder designed and made by Brennan, an engineer student at the University of Witwatersrand.
It is a different world far out on the Atlantic Ocean. One night, outside of Cape Town, there was a glowing phosphorous light on the surface of the sea attracting life.
“In the wake of the yacht you have this bright light. Dolphins jumped out the water, it makes them look like glowing torpedoes. You can’t see the dolphins, you just see this glow,” says Brennan.
“Every time they hit a shoal of fish it would sound like fireworks as the fish scattered,” says Kathryn.
It is not always plain sailing. The Robinsons were halfway, 10 days out of Rio. They were moving along in the trade winds. All was well, when their engine failed. Somehow there was water in the diesel.
“We still don’t know if it was the cheapskate who we got the diesel from or if it was a pipe in the engine. It was dead,” says Mike.
“A yacht uses the wind to move, but uses an engine to survive,” says Mike.
Without it you cannot charge your GPS or purify water.
“When your engine fails, it’s the scariest moment on the Atlantic,” says Gill.
The family did an inventory of their available water; it was running low. They went into emergency rationing and experienced 24 hours without water.
“It was looking pretty bleak,” says Mike.
Luck and ingenuity saw them through. As the sun began to rise, a rare squall blew over the yacht.  Mike woke up to see his children using the yacht’s sail and every bucket they could find to store rain. They collected 80 liters of fresh clean water, which was the exact amount needed to get them to the Brazilian coast.
“What was really cool was that we could see another boat next to us, and they didn’t get any rain. It was just us,” says Michaela.
They managed to fix the engine a few days later, the danger had passed. And to boot they had some extra water for a rare bath.
Then there is the bombardment of flying fish.
“They are like phantoms, they’ll get caught in places you don’t want them and there is just a smell on the deck. They’ll rot for two days and you’ll think oh my word where is that smell coming from. You have to dig them out from all the holes they’ve crept into,” says Ricky.
The ultimate irony was that the family had tailed a line across 5,500 kilometers, hoping to catch a real fish, without getting a single bite.
The Cape to Rio starts off at a chase. Strong south-easters blow the ships off the coast of Cape Town. It is a judgment call where to pick up the calmer trade winds in the heart of the Atlantic. Finally you reach the most difficult phase of the trip, the South American coast.
“Everyone calls it the Parking Lot; you come to a complete stop, with the mountains of Rio just in front of you and the oil rigs around you. You have to be careful because there is a strong current and you end up going backyards. It gets tense on these last couple of days, when you are in the doldrums with no wind. It’s hot and you are trying to keep the boat moving,” says Gill.
The Robinsons were racing against teams who had the latest navigation systems, linked permanently to satellites and day-to-day weather forecasts. All the family had was a small yellow GPS phone called Homer, only useful for pinpointing your position. Instead, they relied on ship routes dating back to 1800s. Most of their opposition ended up being stranded in the Atlantic without wind, whereas the historical route, proven by hundreds of years sailing, was longer but more reliable.
“You will find the family transfers information between each other. I’m at best a journey man, we’ve taught them as best as we know. It goes full circle. The process of going across the Atlantic has got this potential to transfer this huge amount of knowledge. Our children are now teaching us, so when Brennan says this sail needs to be enveloped, we can’t let anybody know we don’t know what he’s talking about,” says Mike.
What started out as a family holiday, on a yacht that needed $24,000 to repair and a case of beer, has now become a family obsession. If you were to sit next to the Robinsons in a restaurant you would not think that they were contenders for a coveted gold medal. But don’t go telling them that, they don’t like losing. Coming second to a team from Cape Town last time was one place too far behind as far as they are concerned. So they plan to spend another 20 days cramped together fighting off flying fish and floating containers. All the while their eyes will be focused on the horizon and the setting sun.

Tag: Rio de Janeiro

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Fast, Furious and lucky to be alive

Hopes, Dreams And Rising Costs

How To Keep Your Head Above Water Without Being a dope

Fish? Not Worth A Biscuit

The Yacht Family Robinson