24 Sep 2014

Botswana’s top athletes, Isaac ‘Badman’ Makwala and Nijel ‘Zoro’ Amos, recently wrapped up their season on a high note and they are now home to rest after a very hectic spell of serious races.

Until November this year, both Makwala and Nijel’s spikes will possibly be wedged somewhere in one of their closets gathering dust because the runners will not be active during the period.

In a nutshell, it is off season for Makwala, the 400m Africa title holder and Amos, the 800m 2014 Commonwealth Games champion, undoubtedly a good opportunity for them to recharge before they resume yet another season.

The importance of resting for athletes cannot be overemphasized, for, as they say, resting helps mental health, hormonal balance, and muscular recovery for athletes.

In her paper, a running and jogging expert, Christine Luff argues that one of the biggest misconceptions with runners who want to get faster is that they should run every day. 

Luff further contends that, in reality, the body needs rest days to recover and repair muscles to get stronger; so, if you run every day without taking days off, you might be hard at work for quite unexpected results.

The athletics expert says running puts a lot of stress on an athlete’s joints, thus taking rest days will give their joints a chance to recover from all that pounding. It is also good to take a mental break from running, she adds.

That both athletes deserve a rest, and enough of it for that matter, is beyond doubt considering how much they have been on the go since beginning of the year.

Although Makwala was ruled out after the 2012 Olympics, he did not look back as in 2013 he denied himself to celebrate the birth of Christ with his family because he was busy on the track, training and preparing for the 2014 season.

His hard work paid dividends as in May this year in Mauritius during a Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) meet, he finished on position one in the event registering a meeting record.

Makwala continued to prove that 2014 was his year when he participated in the Nationals that were held in Gaborone, achieving a 100m national record.

He continued to run in different meets, and this year alone he competed for the first time in the lucrative Diamond League, which is every athlete’s dream.

At the end of the season, he had participated in five Diamond League events, and, although it is worth mentioning that his first league debut in Rome was not so good as he finished on position four, he never lost hope.

However, his best performance for the year was in July in an international meet staged at the La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland, where he doubled in 400metres and 200metres in less than two hours and won the entire race clocking 44:01 in the 400metre race and 19:96 in the 200metre race.

Makwala tumbled at the 2014 Commonwealth Games failing to go beyond the semi-final as Batswana were expecting a medal from him. He later attributed his poor performance to weather.

“Look I am used to warm conditions and mind you when I competed in the heats, the weather was favorable, then in the semi-finals the weather changed completely; it was very cold; hence I did very badly,” he says defensively.

However Badman resurrected at the Africa Senior Championships as clocked 45.58 in the heat and semi-finals registering the fastest qualifier. 

In the finals, he managed to set a new championship record of 44:23; thereby breaking a record set as far back as1988.

He continued to shine in the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup held in Marrakech, Morocco. 

Now representing Africa in the 400metre race he finished on position two recording 44.84.

In the 400 X 4 men’s relay team, need we say more? Africa was trailing and on the second lap, Makwala took it upon himself to restore African hopes of winning the continental relay, yes he did it because at the end his team was crowned the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup 400 X 4 men’s relay team champions.

Talking about the relay, Makwala says he was happy that in the second lap he managed to save the situation, adding that he was running against strong athletes like Chris Brown, but he managed to hand the baton first.

“I will be going to the cattle post to refresh because I love farming and I use cattle to relax my mind,” he concludes. 

For Marobela born Amos, he managed to win all the competitions that were before him, and who can ever forget when he won Botswana’s only medal at the Commonwealth and proceeded to win the African Championship, the Diamond league and he was part of the Africa team at the continental cup, where he continued with his sterling performance by winning gold as well?

Although he was surrounded by controversy last season, Zoro came back from a pre-season injury very strong to prove his critics wrong. He rose to the occasion and proudly hoisted Botswana flag in all international meets.

Whenever he entered the track, it did not matter whether he was with the world’s well known opponents, Batswana always smiled with confidence knowing well that he was capable of bring gold home.

His hard work never went unnoticed as President Lt Seretse Khama Ian Khama appreciated athletes’ sterling performance by providing an opportunity for them to mingle with him.

Amos told BOPA, that the controversy that surrounded him did not deter him to excel: “Look, an athlete is like a rose, if it’s nice everyone will take a picture next to it and if the same rose has lost it colour no one will come next to it,” he philosophied.

The young runner said he was now working on his times to be consistent because that could in future help him to clock a world record. He however said he had realised that he always performed badly when fielded with weak opponents because they did not challenge him to go all the way.

Like Makwala, Amos said his intension is to go and relax at the cattle post with his family because livestock always makes him feel at easy.

After all is said and done, the fact that Badman and Zoro deserve a good rest, like the running expert has advised, is on top of a hill for everybody to see; the young runners worked hard and achieved a lot this season. ENDS