A budding Springbok as a youngster, sprinter Tiaan Whelpton is hoping to finally pull on the black singlet and represent New Zealand.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The 21 year old is currently the fastest man in the country and has his sights set to competing for his adopted country on the world stage.
However running track wasn't his first passion while at school in South Africa, he had hoped to one day play for the Springboks.
After getting a taste of New Zealand life a decade ago, Whelpton's family decided to make the permanent move from Cape Town three years ago and made Christchurch their home.
He played more rugby than athletics in his school years.
"Dad and I did lots of rugby training in my younger years, however decided to ditch the other sports and focus solely on track and field in my final year in high school in South Africa in 2018," said Whelpton.
"I'd had my growth spurts and was feeling pretty good about things in training and that same year I managed to make the final of the South Africa national schools 100 metres."
Not long after arriving here Whelpton spoke with Athletics New Zealand coach Terry Lomax and they decided that the 100 metres was the better option rather than the triple jump, which he also excelled at.
Since then he came under the tutelage of sprint coach Andrew McLennan and the 100m has become his focus.
In 2019 he won the national under-20 final but as he was still awaiting his citizenship he was unable to go on and represent New Zealand.
However his citizenship did get fast tracked and he was soon able to call himself a Kiwi.
Unfortunately he hasn't been able to pull on the black singlet yet as Covid has prevented him from going overseas.
But as far as this summer is concerned he feels he's on track to reach his goals.
"Managing to break the New Zealand residents record was a really big deal because being able to show people I can run record times in New Zealand, imagine what I can do overseas."
Eddie Osei-Nketia and Tiaan Whelpton at the 2021 Sir Graeme Douglas meeting Photo: PHOTOSPORT
At the Potts Classic last month Whelpton climbed to joint number four on the all-time New Zealand lists.
The 21-year-old blasted to 10.09 in the heats - 0.02 quicker than Gus Nketia's 28-year-old national record - but the windspeed of 3.8m/s was above the legal limit.
In the final he cruised to victory in a time of 10.18, equalling the residents record held by Joseph Millar.
He has the Sir Graeme Douglas meeting in Auckland this weekend and then the nationals in Hastings next month.
Whelpton is sure he can record some crazy times if he can get on the faster tracks overseas.
"The current goal is to break the current record (10.11secs) and by doing that I should qualifying for the Commonwealth Games and if I can do 10.05, it's a straight qualification for the World Champs."
However he knows the 100 metres is a tough distance to succeed in.
"It's very condition dependent (like wind), it's also really tough on your body and not something that you can do every weekend for a top time and also there aren't many opportunities to run it."
He's sure that if has a bit of luck he can gain those qualifying times here in New Zealand and he's decided he'll travel this year no matter what.
He hopes to go to Australia at the end of this summer to race on a couple of their quick tracks.
So while the big meets this year might not come off, as a 21- year old he's able to set some targets a little further away.
"I've got the next two Olympics firmly in my sights and I think both of those (Paris and Los Angeles) are something I should be able to achieve as long as I keep tracking the way I am, so that's exciting."
- RNZ
