He was an underdog who went to the World Athletics Championships with nothing to prove but stormed to the finals, refusing to let his stature dim his light as he powered to a personal best (PB) of 44.87.
He is guaranteed at least P60,000 for reaching the finals. He runs at 4:35am on Saturday. Ndori stunned the world when he qualified for his first 400m final at the biggest athletics competition.
He ran an impressive 44.94 in the semi-final. Now he is the only individual athlete after his three other colleagues, Isaac Makwala, Anthony Pesela, and Letsile Tebogo fell by the wayside.
Nijel Amos and Thalosang Tshireletso failed to make it to the starting line after they were banned for failing drug tests. As the last man standing, Ndori is no stranger to the big stage as he was part of the men’s 4x400m relay quartet that scooped a bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Ndori told Mmegi Sport that he has never been this happy in his entire career. “I was already excited about qualifying for the semi-final with a PB performance, anything else was going to be a bonus. I am happy, very excited to reach the final.
I stepped into the track without pressure,” Ndori, who could not hide his excitement, said. At the end of the semi-final race, Ndori limped off the track but assured it was nothing more than fatigue. “As I said, I am not under pressure because I am not well known. I am an underdog,” he said. National team coach, Kebonyemodisa Dose Mosimanyane said he told Ndori to run as fast as he could.
“I told him to run fast so that even if he fails to get into the top two, he could still qualify via non-automatic qualification,” he said. Mosimanyane said he was not surprised when Ndori qualified for the final.
However, the coach was already excited when Ndori made it into the semi-final with a PB on his World Championships debut. Ndori is also part of the men’s 4x400m relay team that gets into action tomorrow.
