The European season has finally come to an end for Olympic silver medallist Mbulaeni Mulaudzi.
And while he ran a speedy 1:44,08 in July and was ranked No 1 in the world for much of the season, what South African athletics followers will remember of 2005 will be his failure to reach the final of the World Championships in Helsinki.
Ironically, Mulaudzi's 1:44,08 was run in the Finnish capital just a month before the championships, and of the top 10 times in the world this year, the 25-year-old SA champion owns three.
So looking back on this up and down season, what happened that disastrous day in August when the man many deemed as the country's only real medal hope came short in the 800m semifinal?
"Everyone's been asking what went wrong," explained Mulaudzi's coach Ian Harries. "But it was just a bad day in the office. When you change the character of a race, you allow others in who normally wouldn't be in contention.
"And the race that day just played into everybody else's hands. He slipped up tactically."
Harries said he was desperately disappointed for his athlete, but in a race as quick as the two-lap event, it can all be over very quickly.
"You have one moment of indecision and blimey it's all over," he said. "It happens so fast, there is no room for mistakes. It's not like the 5 000 or 10 000m where one Olympic champion actually fell and came back to win it.
"But if you look at Mbulaeni's record since 2000 - I think there have been about six major events and this is the first time he's slipped up - it's pretty good going when you're competing at that level day in and day out."
Harries added that there was an enormous amount of pressure on Mulaudzi going into the World Championships, considering he was the only South African in the team who had a realistic shot at a podium place.
"Unless one has actually walked down this road, you can never understand the pressure on these athletes and the mountains they have to climb," he said. "But you also can't be a cry-baby. That's the name of the game and I think Mbulaeni soaks it up really well. He has a fighting spirit.
"People of his calibre don't buckle under one failure. They draw strength from it and are determined to make good on what went wrong."
Harries said that while he is yet to sit down and analyse the season and the way forward with his athlete, who only returned to the country on Monday, the Commonwealth Games is likely to be the next focus.
Mulaudzi claimed Commonwealth gold in Manchester in 2002 and will more than likely be hoping to do the same in Melbourne in March next year.
"We need to reconnect and see what his expectations are and then plan accordingly," said the coach, who also has promising 800m stars such as Charles Jantjies (who recently finished fourth at the World Student Games) and Bonolo Maboa in his training group.
"We have a fair idea of what went wrong in Helsinki and we know how to fix it.
"Up until a few weeks ago, Mbulaeni was ranked number one in the world (he is now No 2) and only two people (Wilfred Bungei of Kenya and Youssef Saad Kamel from Bahrain) have broken 1:44 this year, so watch this space."