Shaun Maswanganyi pulls out of the 200m race in Chengdu

As he looks into managing his programme ahead of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary next month. Maswanganyi was expected to line up in three events, the 100m, 4x100m relay, and the 200m but on the eve of the start of the athletics programme things have changed.

"Obviously I had to pull out the 200m, just now I have too many races underneath my belt because the World Athletics Champs is less than a month away. We don't wanna overload too much but I just wanna use these couple of races as a setup for World Champs," Maswanganyi said.

"I just wanna get some races underneath me. I haven't raced since NCAA. So, it's been a little bit weird and I haven't been coached by my coach for a long time except when I went to Houston for a little bit. 

But times like this as an athlete you just have to embrace it because it's not always gonna fall into plan but you make the most out of it because it makes you stronger."

Maswanganyi revealed that together with his coach (legendary former Olympic and World Champions Carl Lewis), took this decision. The US-based athlete says the weather conditions were also factored in there.

"Definitely, it's very hot here, very humid. I heard that they had to change the weather here to adapt to us. Overall, it's like Houston, Houston is very hot and humid but even then, I'm cautious with how many races I run in. 

So, just to have that tough like schedule and then coming here having to compete in eight races, it would have been a little bit of an overload. It would have been tough to handle but no complaints from me. 

I just know I have a lot of responsibilities to do with the 100m and making sure that the relay team also does well."