Almost five years ago, Luvo Manyonga became world champion in the long jump and thus crowned his story, which led from drug addiction to top performance. Since then, however, the athlete has fallen deeply. A stroke of fate resulted in a four-year ban and a new fight.
Luvo Manyonga is one of the best long jumpers ever. With his personal record of 8.65 meters, the South African has been in 13th place in the all-time world best list since he catapulted himself to that distance in April 2017. Four months later he wins the gold medal at the World Championships in London. Overjoyed, Manyonga fell into the pit to paint an angel in the sand like a child lying on his back with his arms and legs. It is the sporting highlight in the history of an athlete who successfully fights his drug addiction on the way to the title – and now has to overcome this challenge again.
“I could have died,” Manyonga says of his relapse, “I’ve done a lot of crazy things.” Stolen, broken into cars, broken into houses. The BBC tracked down the 31-year-old in his native South Africa, where he lives with no social media accounts, no email inbox, no agent and even no mobile phone. He now tells the British public broadcaster: “I’m glad that God helped me and I’m happy to be alive,” before he tells what a heavy blow of fate threw him off track – and how he was a four-year-old brought in a doping ban. But first you need to look into his past.
In 2010, Manyonga became U20 world champion, jumped over the eight-meter mark for the first time in a competition in Biberach, Baden-Württemberg, and the following year he won gold at the African Games. The almost 1.90 meter tall athlete seems to have a great future – until he comes into contact with “Tik”, a form of crystal meth. According to the BBC, it is sometimes mixed with other substances and sold and smoked. Manyonga tests positive in 2012, refrains from opening the B sample and accepts an 18-month ban.
He goes into withdrawal for the first time and persistent sponsors support the talented long jumper. The president of the South African Olympic Committee provides him with a training opportunity and accommodation, which allows Manyonga to put the addiction behind him and focus on the sport for the time being. In 2016 he made his international debut again, winning silver at the African Championships and leading the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro to the last attempt before the American snatched the gold medal from him with a one centimeter lead.
In contrast to previous successes, Manyonga does not lose focus this time, but shows itself to be even stronger in 2017. With 8.65 meters, he manages the world’s largest jump in almost eight years, and the crowning glory follows at the World Championships in London. Then he sits in an interview with the BBC and says about his addiction: “I went through it and left that behind me.” In 2018 he won gold at the Commonwealth Games, in 2019 he finished fourth at the World Championships. But at the end of 2020 he will be temporarily suspended, and a little later blocked for a long time. Until December 2024, until shortly before his 34th birthday.
“After losing my mother,” Manyonga now tells the BBC, “I went downhill.” He didn’t find a good way to mourn the woman who raised him and his siblings alone, who, according to the report, spent her small earnings so sparingly that there was still something left for Luvo’s ticket to training. “I took drugs so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain.” Every day, as he says, he tried “to numb me so much that I didn’t even know what day it was”.
When he was intoxicated, he always believed that he could return to the top of the world. The pathological addiction to the stimulant gave him that, as well as the knowledge that he had overcome it before. “I thought I could do drugs and go out and perform, but I lied to myself,” Manyonga told the BBC. Instead, the drugs would have spoken out of him.
That’s why, despite everything, he believed in jumping far again when athletics came back from the pandemic. But the doping investigators had apparently long since targeted him. According to the BBC, Manyonga missed a doping test for the first time in November 2019 before being unavailable to the inspectors in April and October 2020. He had not given his whereabouts as required. Three missed tests are treated in the same way as one positive test in the anti-doping fight – and because Manyonga has been banned before, the full hardship hits him.
“I understand my suspension,” he says, who was also nudged by kids for taking a wrong turn: They “came up to me on the street while I was high and asked, ‘Luvo, when are we going to see you back on TV?'” It will be more than two years before he can start again. But “there’s still a chance to come back,” as he says himself. “I’m a strong guy. This is my reality, I can’t run away from it.” However, he still has one job to do.
“I have to find Luvo. Not the world champion, not even the junkie.” Simply luvo. “If I find that person, things will go their way.” For this he withdrew to the north-west of South Africa. BBC reporter Mike Henson writes that contacting Manyonga was complicated, with multiple people making calls, passing numbers, texting. The 31-year-old has been drug-free for a few weeks. “It’s the way he likes it,” Henson introduces his text, which he concludes by saying that Manyonga is a hard man to find – even for himself.
(This article was first published on Tuesday, October 18, 2022.)
