SA stars preparing in Moscow
The South African athletics team have had their first full day in Moscow in preparation for the World Championships. The showpiece begins in the 1980 Olympic Stadium on Saturday.
If medals measure success, the team may return on the 19 August as paupers, but in the first year of a new Olympic cycle, the 26 athletes may well provide the light and inspiration to counter the months of boardroom disruption that threatens to destroy the sport at home.
One major asset in their drive for glory is what can only be described as the most athletic-centric management and coaching support of the past decade.
Both Magda Botha and Glen Bentley are passionate and committed coaches who will give the class of 2013 the focus that has long been missing in South African teams.
There are six specialist event coaches including Mohamed Ally, the previous head of the KZN Coaching committee who left the province to head up sport at Stellenbosch University.
This will be a particular benefit to KZN-bred 200m sprinter, Justine Palframan, who is also now Boland-based and will be hoping to improve on her 23.22 PB to gain a chance of making the semi-final.
Improvements and experience are key to many of younger team members who will gain considerably from the experience afforded from a selection that for the first time in recent years includes both A and B standard qualifiers.
Caster Semenya’s failure to qualify and Oscar Pistorius’s date in court has diminished the media hype that followed the South African team over the past four years. That said, Anaso Jobodwana looks set to grab the South African limelight. The sprinter was a surprise finalist in London, but with Yohan Blake (injured), Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell (doping) amongst the withdrawals, Jobodwana could well take it a stage further...
The USA-based student has clear objectives. “The main thing is to improve on my times. All I am interested in is getting a personal best in both events (100m and 200m), then eventually at the right time everything will happen,” said Jobodwana whose competitive maturity belies his 20 years.
His wind-assisted 20.00 second 200m which completed the double sprint gold at the World Student Games last month was below the SA record and also the 20.29 that has secured a place in the final of the last six senior World Championships. 19.85 seconds is the fastest anyone has ever gone to climb onto the podium.
Few will look past Usain Bolt for the 200m gold medal and even an improved world record, with countryman Warren Weir the only other contender to have broken 19.80 this year. The podium is more open than anytime in the past decade. Any improvement in Jobodwana’s time could provide an upset as big as that of Scot Alan Wells winning the gold medal in the 100m sprint in the same stadium in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
World record holder Bolt is again favourite for the blue ribbon event where Justin Gatlin looks to be his closest competition. Given the limited field of 200m contenders, a case could be made for Jobodwana to omit the 100m, where his best of 10.10 seconds set in Russia at the Student Games, is borderline to make the final, in order to focus on the 200m.
Jobodwana felt that racing the semi-final flat out in London may have cost a better final performance. “I was told that I needed to run the semi-final as thought it was the final. I wish I had been more prepared for that, because running the semi-final took a lot out of me…”
Either way the 20-year-old has the credentials to become South Africa’s most successful sprinter by Friday's 200m finals and although one of the youngest on the team, may well provide the initial inspiration for others to make their mark.
Javelin thrower, Sunette Viljoen, is the best of opur medal hopes with her 69.35m in New york last year second to Barbora Spotakova’s 69.55 in London, but Viljoen has yet to show the same form this year. Mariya Abakumova threw 69.34m in March and a home crowd could see her spear spiking the ground even further out, and German Christina Obergfoll has the best recent form with 67.70m in May.
That said field events are notorious for the exceptional amongst the abysmal. One smooth rhythmical effort where everything comes together can turn five no-performances into a podium place and Viljoen is certainly capable of the distance to add to her championship glory.
The same is true of Olympic and World silver medal long-jumper Khotso Mokoena. The senior team member has failed to hit the form over the past two seasons and sits a lowly tenth on ranking lists, but sixth best for the current year.
Zarck Visser joins Mokoena and could benefit from his experience, but the SA champion has not expanded on the potential shown by his 8.29m qualifying leap in Stellenbosch.
The ability to adapt the speed and length of their run-up has been shown to be a major contributing factor to the medal outcome in past championships where 8.3 metres can claim a podium position.
Similarly, Lynique Prinsloo should make the final, but will need to be back to her 6.81m best that secured her the SA title if she is to reach the historic range of podium places in the women’s long jump
If Jobodwana, Visser and Prinsloo are the best of the young pretenders, then Mokoena, hammer thrower Chris Harmse, 41-year-old marathoner Hendrick Ramaala and LJ van Zyl are the old guard. Van Zyl is competing in his fifth world championships, with his best being the 400m hurdle bronze medal in 2011 in Daegu.
Having failed to break 49 seconds since then, the 28 year old knows he has to hold his pace to the line.
“Its going to take a 48.50 something to be sure of a final (spot),” said van Zyl who may well be handing the leading SA hurdle mantle to Cornel Fredericks who clocked 48.78 at the SA champs in April and was fifth in his debut in Daegu. PC Beneke, who was runner up in Stellenbosch, get his first World Championship outing and like many youngsters in the team can benefit from Van Zyl’s experience.
Perhaps the greatest opportunity facing Ramaala is that of leadership. The Johannesburg-based runner qualified with a 2:12 in Dubai in January 2012, but has moved into the boardroom and been a central player in the politics of the sport. His recent times have given rise to many questioning his selection, but his value to the team and the future of athletics will be tested by his actions in Moscow 2013. The potential is great and his actions on and off the competitive field can be telling to the sport and the adjudged success of the 2013 team.
(File Photo:Gallo Images)
- Norrie Williamson in Moscow
Twitter - @CoachNorrie1 @SportswaveAndre