Prudence Sekgodiso: South Africa’s New ‘Queen’ Of Track & Field

Prudence Sekgodiso is set to make a name for herself that will draw the attention of the entire world.

Sekgodiso has won seven national titles since she was just 17 years old when she won her first in the women’s 800m at the 2019 championships.

“You know, it’s been tough years. I’ve been looking for that sub-two minutes. I’m really proud of myself and it shows that there’s still more to come,” Sekgodiso said.

Sekgodiso made her breakthrough in 2022, despite the fact that her stellar performance in Morocco raised her chances of being a dark horse for Paris 2024. She beat a quality olympic style events top women including former and current title holders, Halimah Nakaayi and Kenyan star Mary Moraa, respectively in Nairobi.

At the Diamond League track and field athletics meeting in Marrakesh, the 22-year-old middle-distance runner from South Africa competed in her first international women’s 800m race of the 2024 season. She finished in a time of one minute, 57.26 seconds, which is the fastest time in the world.

Going into the race, Sekgodiso was ranked among the first three fastest women on the planet this year, kind courtesy an exceptional season-opening 1:58.05 she ran at home in Pretoria.

She featured at her maiden World Athletics Championships in Eugene, where she finished fifth in her semi-final, missing out on reaching the final.

At the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Sekgodiso showed early promise by finishing second in her heat, before she tripped and fell, crossing the line in last place to again miss out on the final.

However, the rising star was highly focused to be get closer to success as an inexperienced athlete on the same field with the ‘fast girls’.

“The world hasn’t really recognised me. The world doesn’t really know me that well because I haven’t run that sub-1:58 but I know I’m going to do it,” Sekgodiso said in an interview shortly before she clocked the world lead.

“I’ll be all over social media and that is what I want. I haven’t been there, according to me. I don’t have that exposure. In Morocco, I will make some miracles happen. I’m ready.”

“I feel like right now I have that experience whereby I know in the heat they take the top three. And in the semis that’s where you have to push yourself. That’s your final, actually,” she said.

“You have to put yourself in the top two. This year we have the Olympics and now I have a goal. My goal is to be in the final. Like my coach says, anything can happen once you are in the final.”

Speaking about her background, Sekgodiso said:

“I am from this village called Medingen. It’s a dusty place, to be honest. There’s no track. There’s no grass. There’s nothing, there is just dust everywhere,” Sekgodiso said in a matter-of-fact way.

“So, it was challenging. I started running when I was doing physical education in grade four. And that’s where I thought, ‘Let me just try this thing of running. Let me see where I can go. Then I just started running and we started visiting other schools.”

Meanwhile, Sekgodiso’s and her mentor Semenya raced together in a South African 4x2km mixed relay team where they came painstakingly close to winning a historic first medal at the World Cross Country Championships in Australia. They finished fourth in a time of 23:50.

Now, she is aspiring to break records at Paris 2024, after learning enough lessons over the last two years. The young star’s coach Samuel Sepeng – the brother of Olympic silver medallist Hezekiel Sepeng and former mentor to Semenya – has conditioned Sekgodiso to chase after a spot in the final, where ‘anything can happen’.