Olympic silver medallist Bradley Nkoana loved soccer as a kid, but he was nudged into athletics by his grandmother.
The speedster, who grew up in Mabopane, Pretoria, wanted football boots, but grandma Anna gave the footwear to his younger brother Thabang instead.
“I was feeling left out and then she bought me spikes. I was like, ‘I don’t want the spikes’, because I wanted to play soccer,” the coaching science student told the Sunday Times at his Potchefstroom base this week.
“My grandma pushed me into being an athlete because she saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.”
His grandmother — a nanny-cum-domestic worker who looked after the boys after their mother died when Bradley was 11 — clearly had good foresight. Nkoana ran the third leg of the South African men’s 4x100m relay that finished second in Paris last year and Thabang, three years younger, is at a football academy.
As a kid Nkoana ran for fun, a byproduct of his soccer, but he was already competitive.
In grade 1 he was the fastest, except for one other kid. “I couldn’t beat that one guy until grade 3.”
And then in grade 4 he asked his coach to put him in against the grade 7 kids. “He was like ‘nah, they’re going to beat you’, [but] he raced me with them and I won. From then I was the fastest from grade 4 until grade 7.”
His grandmother, always positive, was often on hand to support him. “She always tells me, even if I have a good race, ‘you did something wrong’, ‘you shouldn’t have looked at the other person’, ‘you shouldn’t have slowed down’. She always had something to say about my races.”
Nkoana became serious about athletics after winning a bursary to Tuks high school. “Every time there was someone else that would beat me, I would push myself to try to beat them.”
Nkoana, the 10th-fastest South African of all-time with a 10.03sec best, is preparing for what could be the most exciting year for South African sprinting, especially in the 100m, where the competition for relay spots is likely to be fierce.
The tattoo of the Olympic rings on his arm shows what he has achieved, while the tattoo of “Kaizen”, which he says is the Japanese philosophy of constant improvement he learned from anime, represents his present and future.
Nkoana, who turned 20 last month, has had a meteoric rise, but his journey hasn’t been easy. His mother’s death from breast cancer had a major impact on him, as has a father who has drifted in and out of his life erratically.
He remembers that his mother worked long days, seeing her only in the mornings before she left home and in the evenings after she returned. “I only started being close with her when she was getting sick and she had to quit her job and stay at home.
“So that’s when I started knowing her, her favourite artist, the songs she liked. But the one thing she left me with, she said to me I must take care of my younger brother. And I want to live up to that. And every step I take going forward in my life, I’m paving the way for my younger brother.”
Nkoana has realised over the past three years he and Thabang didn’t grieve for their mother properly. “When she passed away and we buried her, our grandma stayed strong and continued living life and providing for us. So to us it was like: ‘Okay, is this how it’s like when someone precious to you dies?’
“So I’ve always stayed strong and kept it inside, but it started affecting me. It started affecting the relationships I have because I wasn’t always speaking. I was always quiet and didn’t communicate properly. To this day I still have issues with communication, but I do go to therapy for that.”
Nkoana has seen his friends call their mothers when something happens in their lives — good or bad. Even with the unconditional love he has received from his grandmother, there has still been a void. “There’s a hole in me that I just can’t fill, I can’t fill it in … Also, the relationship I have with my father makes it difficult because it just always feels like I’m alone and have to deal with things by myself.”
But he’s never forgotten the promise he made to his mother.
“I always keep in mind that my younger brother is looking up to me. If I crumble, he will crumble as well. So anything I do in life, I do it being strong. Even if I know that I’m going to be hurt, I’m going to be depressed, I take it to heart and I stand strong and be optimistic about it …
“What my brother sees in me is someone that’s strong and someone that he can come to and be like: ‘How are you able to go through this thing?’ I’m able to tell him: ‘The only reason I stay positive is because of you’.”
BIO: Bradley Nkoana
- Home: Pretoria
- Age: 20
- Given first name: Botshelo
- Base: North-West University, Potchefstroom
- Course: Sport Science, 1st year
Best times
- 60m — 6.64 (February, 2024)
- 100m — 10.03sec (July, 2024)
- 200m — 20.88 (March, 2024)
- 4x100m — 37.57 (African record & 7th fastest team in history; August, 2024)
Achievements
- 2024 Olympic silver (men’s 4x100m relay)
- 2024 under-20 world championship bronze (100m)
- 2022 SA championship silver (100m)
- 2022 SA U-18 championship gold (200m)
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