Tayla Kavanagh believes consistency has been the biggest driving force behind her breakthrough season, and the South African middle-distance star now hopes to put the finishing touches to a memorable 2026 at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen.
The 25-year-old will represent South Africa in the women’s 5km at the championships on 19 September, having enjoyed a season that has seen her broaden her horizons beyond the roads and establish herself as one of the country’s most promising distance runners.
For Kavanagh, there has been no single dramatic change behind her rise. Instead, she credits discipline, routine, and a greater focus on the mental side of her preparation.
“I’ve worked really hard on the mental side of the game,” Kavanagh told IOL Sport exclusively on Friday. “You can be as physically prepared as anything, but if you’re not lining up with your mental game being 100%, you’re always going to be a little bit disadvantaged.”
Her 2026 campaign began with a decision to give track racing a genuine opportunity, and performances at the ASA Track and Field Championships provided an early confidence boost.
From there, she has steadily built momentum, including a 14:58.49 performance in the 5,000m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
It was her first international 5,000m at that level, and Kavanagh believes the experience will prove valuable when she returns to championship competition.
“Walking away from that, I feel like I now know going into the next championship that I do race on the track, I feel like I have a lot more experience and that can also help in terms of the way in which you race,” she said.
Her most recent outing provided another clear indication of her progress. Kavanagh won the Hollywoodbets Durban 10K in 31:39 on Sunday, setting a course record despite suffering a fall during the race and battling a strong headwind in the second half.
Rather than dwelling on the setback, she took pride in how she responded.
“I think looking back I’ve had some time to process everything that went on this past weekend, and I would say that I’m really, really proud in terms of my resilience and just the mental strength that I had to get through that battle,” she said. “It would have been super easy just to tap out of the race and say, ‘You know, I’m done.'”
Ready to take on the world
That resilience will be tested again in Copenhagen, where Kavanagh expects a highly competitive women’s 5km field featuring several athletes who have also raced at the highest level on the track. She is deliberately avoiding setting herself an imposing finishing position or time target.
“I like to not put too much pressure on myself,” she said. “I’m going into the race giving it my best effort to see how I feel on the day, and just executing the best possible race according to how I feel on that day.”
Kavanagh has experience of the World Road Running Championships, having competed at the inaugural event in Riga in 2023, where she finished 15th in the 5km in 15:50. She now returns to the competition as a very different athlete.
“I do know that I can run a lot faster than I did back then, which is really exciting,” she said.
The change is reflected in her current performances over 10km, where she has regularly dipped below 32 minutes. But while the 10km has become a familiar distance on the South African road-running circuit, the 5km presents a different challenge.
“The 5km on the road these days is literally a sprint from the word go,” Kavanagh said. “You’re going to feel the pain from very early on, whereas in a 10km you usually feel the pain maybe from about 7km. It’s just leaning into the hurt and knowing that it’s going to hurt quite early on, but also knowing that it’s only 15 or so minutes.”
After a season in which consistency has given her growing confidence, Kavanagh now has one final opportunity to test how far she has come. Copenhagen will provide that test against some of the world’s best, and she is hoping the progress of 2026 can translate into her strongest performance yet on the global stage.
