South African sprinter Wayde Van Niekerk ran the fastest 400-meter race in history at the Rio Olympics on Sunday (Aug. 14), breaking a 17-year-old world record and winning his country’s first 2016 gold medal...
Fans in Rio cheered, especially one: his coach Ans Botha, better known as “Tannie Ans,” a 74-year-old great grandmother of four who has been a track-and-field coach since the 1960s.
Botha has said that she has learned about coaching Van Niekerk from watching other great runners...Botha said she took home a few lessons from sharing the warm-up area with Usain Bolt from Jamaica and Justin Gatin from the United States.
