'Without athletics my life was hell': Viwe Jingqi on finally making it back on track

This time last year, Viwe Jingqi may have had an inkling that 2023 had the obligatory second season syndrome struggles lying in wait for her. But little could have prepared her for how it actually panned out. 

Having announced her immense potential by breaking Mari-Lise Furstenburg and Evette de Klerk's respective - and long-standing - SA Under-18 100m and 200m records in 2022 with times that made her the fastest woman in South Africa that year (11.22sec and 23.03sec), the anticipation of what the teenager would do the next year was understandably piqued.  

But an appendectomy early in the year meant the beginning of the end to a season which had not even begun. According to Jingqi's coach Paul Gorries - himself a former child prodigy - something as simple as what kind of operation she had would have a domino effect on her competing prospects which ended up with her barely starting a race in anger all of last year.