It wasn’t meant to be - Nene after winning Commonwealth bronze

It wasn’t the medal that he wanted but it was a medal nonetheless and took Team SA’s total to 26 with the prospect of another couple more to come before the curtain drops on the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

There’s no way of sugar-coating it, Zakithi Nene had his eyes set on the 400m gold and given the form he had shown leading up to Glasgow he came in this week as the man they all had to beat. That target on his back was well earned – a 43.89 win in Paris at the end of June placed him at No 3 on the global list and the two athletes ahead of him in rankings weren’t at these Games.

However, he’d not done himself any favours by finishing third in his semi-final in 45.70, having been given a bye through the first round heats as a “top seed”. Ironically, that worked against the South African, who would have preferred to get into major championship rhythm by getting his momentum going through the rounds.

To his credit, the 28-year-old was brutally honest in his assessment of his performances at these Games.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” he said as he digested the race, where he’d finished third in 45.21sec, with gold won by Nigeria’s Samuel Ogazi (44.25) and silver going to Trinidad & Tobago’s Jereem Richards (44.82).

“I didn’t quite show up in the heat (semi-final) and I put myself in the situation where I was given a lane as one of the fastest losers. I was definitely below par in that first race and I had to shift my focus and tell myself that I’m not leaving here without any silverware. That’s what I did.”

Nene had reacted well from the blocks and ran quite conservatively through the first half before picking up the tempo at the top bend. He arrived in the straight with every chance, but was unable to match the finishing of Ogazi and Richards.

“I definitely wasn’t chasing a time but running a more tactical race to try to get a medal for my country. I was a little thrown off by the fact that I wasn’t running in the heats so that changed my perspective in the way I rolled out my training programme. It was a bit of trial and error.

“So that’s the reason that I’m here today with the bronze. I know very well that I came here wanting gold but I didn’t show up the way I wanted to and that’s why I just had to fight for something.”

It was a strange day, with an elite 400m final being run at noon, in the early session on a chilly Glasgow morning.

“I’m used to evening races and racing at 8pm, 10pm. So, to show up at 12 noon, it changes how I go about my day, my morning, I’ll take this. I still have a main gold in mind this year, which is the Ultimate Championship.”

Like 200m gold medallist, Sinesipho Dambile, that inaugural World Athletics in Budapest from 11-13 September is high on Nene’s radar. It presents the perfect opportunity for him to rebound and put the record straight. And, a medal for South Africa, no matter the colour, is a job well done.