Mikia Kalati
LERATO Sechele maintained her impressive form in the early stages of the new athletics season winning her third competition in a row to set a new personal best and national record in which discipline? in Germiston, South Africa on the 23rd of this month.
The 25-year-old set a new personal best and national record in long jump with a leap of 5.98m and narrowly missed her personal best in triple jump by a centimetre, jumping 13.56m.
Sechele started her new-year by winning the Western Province Athletics Multi and Open Meeting in Cape Town on 16 February and followed it up with another impressive performance winning the Free State Championship with a jump of 13.11 early in March.
She also won a bronze medal at last year’s African Senior Championships in Nigeria.
The star athlete told this publication that she is over the moon to have started the year on a high note and is confident of more success.
“I’m motivated and have been working very hard. If you look at it, my first competition was in Cape Town and the performance was below what I have achieved now,” Sechele said.
“So, the goal has been to improve in every competition and that has been the motivation to aim higher going to other competitions coming up later this year.
“I want to do better especially now that I have broken my personal best. That has given me more strength to go for more and I’m very motivated.
Sechele once again stated that her target is to do well at the All Africa Games to be staged in Algeria later this year as well as qualifying for the World Championship set for Doha in September 2019.
“My target is not only to be at the All Africa Games but to win a medal and looking at my performance at this stage, it gives me hope that I can succeed there.
“I’m excited and hopeful of more success. There are a number of competitions lined-up for me and next month we have the Botswana meeting. It is part of coach’s plan and it’s also exciting that I’m doing both triple jump and high jump.
“I am extremely happy to have won both competitions and that I got my personal best in triple jump makes it even better,” she said.
Sechele is also one of the local athletes, who are in the Lesotho National Olympic Committee (LNOC) Olympic scholarship for the 2020 games scheduled for Tokyo.