Louis van Zyl winner of 400m Hurdles in Games' rec - Melbourne (© Getty Images)
Ask Louis van Zylor L.J. van Zyl as we must call him - to name his hero and he picks an Australian. Ask him to identify the athlete he most admires and he chooses an American. But it will be a wholly South African celebration on the fourth day of the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Osaka, Japan (25 Aug to 2 Sep) if van Zyl collects the 400m Hurdles medal his form promises.
Russell Crowe, the New-Zealand-born Australian actor, played the lead role of Maximus in the film Gladiator and the character is much-admired by van Zyl for his fighting qualities. For van Zyl’s favourite athlete look no further than Ed Moses, the United States 400m hurdler who won 122 consecutive races between 1977 and 1987. Moses is selected for two reasons – his achievements and his shorts!
It was in Rome no less, home of the Coliseum and the gladiator, that van Zyl put a world class field to the sword on 13 July. Neither Kerron Clement, the World Cup champion, nor James Carter, winner of the preceding IAAF Golden League race in Paris, could stay with van Zyl who, eight days later, added the All Africa Games gold medal to his growing list of achievements.
"My motivation is to go to the Olympics and win it"
A World Junior champion at the age of 16, van Zyl believes that now, at 22, he is on the threshold of World Championships and Olympic medals. “My motivation is to go to the Olympics and win it,” he said, adding that he believed it was an entirely attainable goal.
The last South African to win an Olympic athletics gold medal was Josiah Thugwane in the Marathon in 1996. But it is more than half a century since the rainbow nation celebrated a track title and almost 80 years since a South African last won a men’s track title.
The last Olympic track and field title for South Africa was delivered by Esther Brand in the women’s High Jump, in 1952, and the last won by a man stretches all the way back to 1928, when Sydney Atkinson won the 110m Hurdles. However, there was recent Olympic medal success for South Africa in van Zyl’s event, Llewellyn Herbert taking 400m Hurdles bronze at Sydney 2000.
In the World Championships, South Africa has produced only three individual champions and none in a track event, so victory in Osaka would see van Zyl make history. The roll of honour so far covers Jacques Freitag (men’s High Jump, 2003), Marius Corbett (men’s Javelin Throw, 1997), Hestrie Cloete (women’s High Jump, 2001 and 2003) and men’s 4 x 100m (2001).
Calm and mentally focussed
At home van Zyl studies tapes of Moses. “I have a big stack of videos of all his races,” van Zyl said. “I watch them for inspiration and also for tactics. If something happens in a race I can see how to stay calm and keep mental focus.”
And, drawing a comparison with the shorts worn by Moses in the pre-lycra era, van Zyl prefers the old fashion because he believes that the figure-hugging style is restrictive for hurdling. “I think I am one of the few 400 hurdlers who still wear these,” he said. Indeed, he is one of the few athletes in any of the sprints who still wears them.
Van Zyl began hurdling when he six years old, working up from 80m to 100, 200, 300 and eventually 400 Hurdles. “My first 400 Hurdles was when I was 15 years old and I did 53 seconds flat,” van Zyl recalled. Then, by 16, he was World Junior (under-20) champion.
But, before he enjoyed the sweet taste of success, he first had to swallow the bitter pill of disappointment. “I was disqualified at my first international event - the World Youth Championships in Hungary in 2001,” Van Zyl recalled. “I was disqualified on a technical point at the first hurdle. I was really disappointed and it made me sick for one week.”
“I was not literally sick but depressed because you want to do well at your first international event. I just wanted to lay in my bed but, when it was over, when I got back to South Africa, I trained doubly hard and I was more motivated to do better at international events. It never crossed my mind to quit.”
Winning the World Junior title convinced van Zyl that one day he could become a World and Olympic champion. Until only three weeks before the World Juniors, van Zyl did not have a hurdles coach – only a sprints coach – “so my hurdles technique at that stage was not so good”. It was then that he teamed up with Hennie Kotze, who remains his coach.
Please call me “L.J. van Zyl”
Although his full name is Louis van Zyl, his friends call him L.J. and that is the name by which he wishes to be known in athletics. A formal request to the IAAF to acknowledge this has been accepted and it is as L.J. van Zyl that he is now recorded as in results and rankings.
Commonwealth Games champion in Melbourne in March last year, and World Cup runner-up in September, van Zyl rejects the theory that he is at a disadvantage because the recognised track season follows the South African one. “I think it is just a mind thing,” van Zyl said. “Ninety per cent of it is in your brain. I am training to peak in Osaka and I think it is going to happen. Last year, at the Commonwealth Games in March, I did 48.05 and in the World Cup, in September, I did 48.35.”
Long-term, van Zyl has a career personal best target-time in mind. “My ultimate goal is (to break) 47.2 then I am in the top five of the all time list,” he said. In the meantime, if he can win World and Olympic titles - or even silver or bronze - the man who says “I don’t have a South African hero” can become just that to the next generation of young athletes in his homeland.
David Powell for the IAAF
