Two members of South Africas silver-winning 4x400m relay team at the U-20 world championships in Lima at the weekend followed similar injury-enforced journeys to the one-lap event as Wayde van Niekerk.
Bryan Katoo, who ran the first leg in Peru, and the man he passed the baton to, Sihle Mahlangu, used to do other disciplines.
Katoo, like Van Niekerk, focused on the shorter sprints before a hamstring problem made him reconsider.
I was initially a 100m and 200m sprinter, but due to injury my coach had to move me to 400m, which worked in my favour so I think 400m is my main event [now], said Katoo, the son of a citrus farmer at Hankey, a small town in the Gamtoos Valley in the Eastern Cape.
I strained my hamstring and in that period my coach [Jannie van Niekerk] told me sprinting short distances is aggravating it because its more intense and that would cause it to worsen, so we took the 400m, added the 18-year-old matric pupil at Nico Malan in Humansdorp.
