Former 400m World Champion Amantle Montsho has served out a two year suspension for an anti-doping rule violation spoke to Sunday Standard this week about how he coped with the adversity and her plans for the future.
The athlete who is nearing the end of her prime is upbeat is now free to compete in all International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) sanctioned events and is optimistic that she will reclaim her glory.
Montsho was suspended after she tested positive to a banned substance, methylhexaneamine during the 2014 commonwealth games in Glasgow, Scotland.
Montsho hinted that she was planning for a short stint in international competitions said she was delighted to be back in athletics after ‘two years of misery.’
“It was not easy spending all these years on the sidelines without competing in any IAAF competition for something that I don’t even understand how it happened to this day. However, I had to deal with all the chaos that came with the suspension. I struggled to reconcile with my emotions and had to go through counselling to move on peacefully with my life and I managed. These things can happen to any other athlete like me and some have already gone through similar situations or even worse,” said Montsho.
With her ban now water under the bridge, Montsho said she was now eyeing next year’s World Champions slated for United Kingdom, London as her last official competition before she retires from the track.
“Age is not on my side and I have to say goodbye in a grand style by proving my worth and earning my stripes in athletics. I am confident that I still have what it takes to compete and win titles and put my country on the map, but just one more year I will be done with athletics. When athletes complete their suspension some of them do not even bother to return to the track but I am not one of them and I will try my best,” said the 33 year old athlete.
“It is not going to be an easy comeback considering that I spent two years out of action while my opponents were busy training and competing on international meets. I will have to catch up with them and it would be awesome for me to retain my world champion title in my final year of action. I have learnt a lot over the two years that I spent out of track. I have been hard at training alone but not like before, just wanted to keep fit and not to gain too much weight and I managed.”
Montsho says after the world championships she will shift her focus to her property business. She thanked Batswana for supporting her during the difficult time.
“The support I got from Batswana kept me going and motivated me a lot because they showed me that they still believed. I didn’t feel victimized. The first competition I will partake in will be in Gaborone and I will dedicate it to Batswana.”
