The awareness drops slowly, he says from Tokyo. It is now about 48 hours since he ran the finish with his hands up. As the last of the four sprinters, he had to do everything to achieve a place on stage. “I think I have already looked back the videos a thousand times,” says Afifa.
Reward
In Amsterdam he trains with Team Para Athletics, including with Paralympic Champion Fleur Jong, on the track in Geuzenveld. Hard work for success. Having a bronze medal after the world championships is more than a reward. “Of course it is only a slice, a kind of item,” he puts into perspective first. “But for now it is a realization that all the work you put in pays off and it was worth it. It is always, but it is extra fun to be rewarded for it.”
Rain
The four men achieved their success in the pouring rain. Perhaps an advantage, since the men in the Netherlands also regularly have to deal with big showers. “Sometimes you already get wet on the track when you start training,” says Afifa. “I have always thought: it can also rain in the final later.”
‘Not in line with expectations’
That there was a podium place in it, that was not something that Afifa took into account in advance. He had to tolerate reigning world champion America and reigning Olympic champion Canada, but then he crossed the finish line with his arms in the air. “Being third behind Canada and America is not nothing,” he laughs. “Of course we also defeated many countries for it. But as sixteenth we arrived here at the World Cup, with the interim that we have walked. It is not logical or in line with expectations that you will be third. So it was a kind of ‘Against All Odds’ and that is extra beautiful of course.”
To inform
Afifa is currently still in Tokyo, but the messages come in from the home front in Amsterdam. “I still have so many things open and I feel really guilty that I have not answered so much yet. I have to sit in front of it and it all the way, because I want to respond to everything personally.”