Why ‘tailored’ Wildschutt brought teacher to Paris

The racing top worn by Adriaan Wildschutt in his historic 10,000m race at the Paris Olympics on Friday was altered to fit him comfortably.

When asked if his Team South Africa shirt, which is part of the official kit sponsored by Mr Price, had been tailored, the diminutive long-distance star, who had just lowered his own South African record to 26min 50.64sec after finishing 10th, replied with a smile.

“Apparently nothing fits, at least for me. It’s not their fault, it’s my fault — I’m just too tiny, I guess. My special cut,” said the US-based MBA graduate who brought out an old high school teacher from his hometown of Ceres who had encouraged him to keep running when he had thought about quitting the sport.

Wilschutt, who stands 1.65m tall, delivered the best performance by a South African in this event at a Games, playing his role in the fastest Olympic race over that distance ever, with 13 runners dipping under 27 minutes.

At one stage he was lying fourth.

Wildschutt, who studied at Florida State University, said he brought an old teacher to the Games. “I had my high school teacher, who kind of introduced me to running. She came here, I was able to bring her here because I wanted to give up running in my last year of matric. I wanted to focus on my academics and she told me to keep on running.”

While resting in bed the afternoon of the race, the 26-year-old had surfed social media and discovered that the kids of his old high school in Ceres had been celebrating his upcoming race. “It almost makes me emotional because I was laying in my bed this afternoon and I knew this was going to be the biggest race of my life, and I was just looking all over social media.

“My high school, it seems like they didn’t have school today and they’ve just drawn all these posters of me, roaming the streets of Ceres and then celebrating me and I give a lot of inspiration to those kids and they can look up to me and know that they can be very successful if they work hard and they put their mind to it.”

Wildschutt said success came from hard work. “My parents didn’t go to school and none of that stuff. We weren’t rich or any of those things, but I worked hard. There’s one thing they instilled in me is, work hard. Don’t play victim here and there.”

Wildschutt ran a brave race, staying in touch with the leaders until the telling attack with just 500 metres to go. “I can just gain from there and continue to do better but I think in the next couple of years or so I will be able to really [improve] … like last year I was 14th in the world champs.

“I wasn’t even there with seven laps to go, now with 300 to go I was still there. I will continue to work hard and try and develop that closing speed in the last 300 to really potentially get on a podium.”

He was just 7.5 seconds behind the winner and world record-holder, Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda.

Wildschutt said he was energised by the more than 70,000 fans at Stade de France who roared throughout the race.

Earlier, one of the decathlon 400m heats had to be postponed as fans in the stands cheered loudly at their streaming devices watching swimmer Leon Marchand win the 200m individual medley at the Le Defense Arena across town.

But the 10,000m captured their full attention. “I think it’s not even the amount of people, it’s just the energy that I got from the crowd.”