Adriaan Wildshutt - My hard work has finally paid off

Currently based at Florida University in the United States, the 25-year-old athlete has achieved extraordinary feats in the past few months.

In May, Wildshutt surpassed a long-standing record set by Hendrick Ramaal in 1999, clocking 27:23:10, besting the previous record of 27:29:94. Last week, he crushed Elroy Gelant’s 2016 record of 13:04:88.

With a remarkable performance, Wildschutt registered an impressive new South African record of 13:02:46 during the World Athletics Continental Tour Challenger in Belgium. And he looks forward to representing his country on a global stage.

"I guess the elevation training over there helped a lot. It's just having a great coach and a great team and having all the things that I need to perform and stay healthy and consistent," Wildschutt said.

"But I think the biggest thing for me is just the hard work that I've always done, that hasn't changed. It really started getting to that level where I can really run fast. 

So, I think it's nice to see that my hard work finally gets me to a level where I can compete."

While qualifying for the Olympic Games in Paris 2024 was his primary focus, breaking two records was an unexpected but remarkable achievement.

"I think the 5km was probably at least in my mind in maybe like a few weeks ago, I guess I thought I will be able to break it but maybe not right now. Four weeks before this 5km I started doing well and even my coach was like; okay I am in really good shape. 

We never talk about how fast I wanna run, we just knew that I'm very fit right now. Even training in high elevation, I was able to run really fast. 

When I came in, we know the goal was to get on the Olympics standard and if I get on the Olympics standard then I know I will break the world record as well. Because the Olympics standard is 13:05:00 which means you have to run 13:04 which is about the SA record. 

I think it was just a bonus because my dream was just to get into the Olympics but in that I broke the record."