Hezekiel Sepeng is born

The athlete Hezekiel Sepeng is born in Potchefstroom, North West (then Western Transvaal). The ‘Potchefstroom Express’, as he was known, was scouted in one of J.P. van der Merwe’s coaching clinics in a township outside Potchefstroom. Having won numerous medals and setting the South African record for the 800 metres, his greatest achievement was in 1996 where he won South Africa’s only silver medal at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA. There he set the new South African record of 1:42:86. However, since then his career has been dogged by controversy. In 2005 he tested positive for the banned steroid norandrosterone by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).  As a result, he was banned from competitions for two years between 2005 and 2007.