Tokyo 2020 Olympics bronze medallist in the men’s 4x400m relay, Isaac Makwala, will consider retirement after the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, this publication has established.
Turning 36 years old next month, Makwala is the oldest male athlete on the athletics national team. He has been a feature on the running tracks around the world for more than a decade. His medal cabinet is decorated with international awards like the just-ended Olympics 4x400m bronze medal, the IAAF Diamond League 400m trophy, as well as gold medals from the Glasgow 2018 Commonwealth Games 400m and 4x400m.
Makwala still has intentions of adding to his medal tally at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon, USA and the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England. After the international competitions, Makwala says he will consider retirement from the sport that he is so passionate about.
But what will he do after his retirement? Makwala told this publication in an interview that he plans to follow in the footsteps of his coach Justice Dipeba. “But the way we take sports in Botswana, I don’t think I will coach here,” he said in a phone interview. “Maybe I will opt for other countries because it is difficult to coach in Botswana, working with people who do not even understand what sports is and what athletes need to perform.”
Makwala’s record speaks for the man as one of the best athletes that Botswana has ever had. He is the national record holder of three sprint races, namely the 200m (19.77), the 300m (31.44) and the 400m (43.72). He also formed part of the 4x400m that smashed the African record to 2:57.27 at the just-ended Tokyo Olympics.
The Tutume-born athlete is also the only male athlete in the world to have accomplished the fastest double in a single day, namely the 200m and the 400m races, breaking the 400m African record in 44.01 and winning the 200m in 19.96 one-and-a-half hours later. He performed this feat at the La Chaux-de-Fonds meet in Switzerland in 2014.
