'A national title would be nice' - Sabelo Dhlamini sets sights on Tokyo 2025 and SA Champs after 48.73 World Lead

After starting the 2025 season like a rocket, Sabelo Dhlamini is hopeful that this will finally be the year that he qualified to represent South Africa at his very first World Championships. The University of Johannesburg 400m hurdler set the Central Gauteng Athletics (CGA) track and field season alight with a 48.73 season opener which was a personal best, a world lead time and less than two tenths of a second outside the World Championships qualification standard.

Dhlamini in action at the 2024 CAA African Championships in Cameroon - a competition which has motivated him to go beyond his best in 2025. Photo credit: Supplied.

“I didn't like how my last race of the 2024 season in Cameroon went,” he said reflecting on last year’s African Championships in Doala in June, where he failed to break 50 seconds and missed out on a place in the final by one spot.  “So I'd say that's what’s been fuelling me in training to work hard. I’m trying to fix the errors of my previous races. The key though is having a great coach, good infrastructure and a training group with amazing depth and talent. I train with monsters,” said the man who dominated last week's CGA to win gold in 49.45.

A relative late bloomer, the 30-year-old who is coached by Reneilwe Aphane only donned the green and gold for the first time at the 2022 African Champs in Mauritius as his career finally kicked on. But after finally breaking into the upper echelons of one of the country’s most competitive events, Dhlamini had to swallow the bitter pill of disappointment when at last season’s Athletics South Africa (ASA) Senior Track and Field Championships he watched Lindokuhle Gore snatch the gold medal from within his grasp after he had led the for over 300m. 

Dhlamini in the red and black of CGA narrowly loses the national title to a fast finishing Gora at the Msunduzi Athletics Stadium in Pietermaritzburg in April 2024. Photo Credit: Supplied.

More disappointment followed when he saw the official results because even though the man from Katlehong township in Ekurhuleni learnt that he had run a personal best 49.48 for the silver medal, he had narrowly missed out on Olympic qualification. With those near misses top of mind, the Masters graduate has decided to make some changes to the year ahead to ensure that he will line up at World Championships in Tokyo in September.

“I'm taking somewhat of an easy year academically this year as I've passed my masters and am waiting for graduation. So my main focus is track. I've never been to a global championship. So qualifying for such would be amazing. For me to qualify for Worlds I feel like I just have to keep working as hard as I have, keep on polishing up mistakes identified, and pray for good conditions and health. My goal is to do better than last year and a national title would be nice,” he smiled.