Van der Burgh an ‘old man’ among kids with Rio dreams
BY DAVID ISAACSON: 09 FEBRUARY 2016, 05:59
CAMERON van der Burgh, preparing to compete at his third Olympic Games in Brazil in August, joked on Monday he was getting old — after finding himself surrounded by new young faces at a weekend gala.
“There were all these kids and I didn’t know who they were — I was thinking, ‘Where did they come from?’ I’m getting old,” Van der Burgh, 27, said at a media day at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria.
This institution can probably claim more Olympic and world championship success stories than any other in SA, having helped with four of the country’s medals at London 2012.
At the beginning of the interview, van der Burgh, the reigning 100m breaststroke Olympic champion, was greeted by fellow gold medallist James Thompson, the rower.
Van der Burgh believes his age is an advantage. “I’m approaching it a lot more like the (London) Olympics (than 2008, when he failed to reach the final). I know how I need to feel at every stage in the season. And I’ve got four years more training and four years more experience.”
Van der Burgh was pushed off the 100m breaststroke mantle by England’s 21-year-old Adam Peaty, but he says he is focusing on what he needs to do to put himself in contention.
“You do, obviously, watch the others. But every day I wake up, I don’t think ‘I’ve got to beat Adam Peaty’. I’ve got to train…
“To win the Olympics, you’re going to have to go 57 seconds — high or low, I don’t know. These Olympics are going to be fast. A lot of world records will be broken this year,” predicted van der Burgh, who broke the 100m mark, winning gold four years ago with his 58.46 effort.
Meanwhile Jon Smith, a member of the golden rowing crew in London who now races the lightweight double sculls with Thompson, arrived wearing an ice pack on his arm after suffering a swollen elbow.
Some of the French team including his world champion sculls rivals, have been training in Pretoria, and even there, he has been showing his competitive edge. “While I was on the Watt bike, a French guy came in and the work rate went up.”
He has also seen them working out on the water: “They don’t train hard enough. Their intensity is high, but the duration is lower. They go faster than us, but they don’t go as long as us.”
Other athletes at the media day included Comrades and Two Oceans queen Caroline Wostmann, as well as younger ones still dreaming of glory, such as sprinter Akani Simbine.
“I believe I can perform against world-class athletes … preparation is going well. I’m healthy, I’m injury free. I’m much stronger than I was this time last year.”
LJ van Zyl, the 400m hurdles veteran who has won medals at every athletics competition except the Olympics, is plotting his course for Rio, focusing on his stride pattern, which must change on the bouncier Mondo surface he will run on in Brazil.
During his whole career, van Zyl has switched between 14 and 15 strides on harder surfaces, but now he is looking to start with 13 strides between hurdles before going longer. The key, he points out, is to launch over the last hurdle off his stronger right leg, which he failed to do in the semifinals of the world championships last year. This is surely the last chance to get his new combination right.
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