Semenya makes history

Caster Semenya provided the major highlight of the second day when she became the first athlete to do the triple winning the 400m, 800, and 1500m titles.

The North-West athlete blasted the 400m in 50.74 seconds, not only improving her 51.47 personal best set earlier in the year at the provincial championships, but also becoming the fourth fastest South African ever behind Heide Seyerling Quinn’s 50.05 set in 2000.

No one was in the same class as the London silver medalist with KZN’s Zoe Engler the nearest contender, with an African qualifying time of 53.30 seconds and Tsholofelo Thipe earning bronze.

Looking completely relaxed after her one lapper, it was clear there was still more in the tank. 

Less than an hour later Semenya, who had said the idea was to go out and ‘have fun,’ was back on the track and took her season’s 800m time down to 1:58.45, to totally dominate the double lapper, with 17 year old Liza Kellerman left as an ‘also-ran’ in 2:05.75 for silver and ex-KZN athlete Gena Lofstrand taking bronze in the colours of Athletics central North west in 2:06.65.

With two titles, two qualifiers, and world lead times in both distances; it was already an historic day as Semenya moved towards the Triple Title target by earning the 1500m title. 

For once Semenya had some strong competition, through USA-based Dominique Scott, who has a season’s best of 4:08.00 and had opted to focus on the metric mile rather than her alternate 5000m.

After a relatively fast 300m the pace settled back with Semenya content to slowly build her momentum with Scott sitting in third before making her move with 800m to go. 

Semenya moved up then went with Scott at the Bell, hit the turbo-boost with 300m remaining, after which it was all over with Scott left fighting in the tail-stream. 

The Triple champion broke through the line in 4:10.93. Scott fought hard down the home straight to finish over 15 metres adrift.
Statistically the powerful 25 year old should be able to take Zola Budd’s 4:01.81 record set in 1984 down to 3:54, but it will be on a day when her sole focus is the metric mile.

“I will be competing at both 1500m and 400m in the European circuit,” said Semenya who is back to her 2009 form. The versatility of strength and speed at the distances below and above her specialist 800m gives her the ability to cover all strategies and tactics of a world-class event.

Elroy Galant who finished second to Stephen Mokoka in Friday’s 5000m offered to assist the Gauteng North athlete in the 10 000m. Along with Sibusiso Nzima they worked together to usher Mokoka through to 5000m with 3 seconds to spare on the SA Record and 12 seconds on the qualification time of 28 minutes.

Now on his own Mokoka struggled to keep on pace and dropped three seconds behind the requirement with two kilometres remaining. As lapped runners tried to push him along, the packed Coetzenberg stadium got behind him with rhythmical chants of “Stephen,” which gave him to energy to kick in a final 400m that would take him to 27:57.50.

“It’s great to have a world leading time as it will ensure I get some runs in the early Diamond League events,” said Mokoka, aware that this time will drop in the rankings as the northern hemisphere gets into swing. 

“I really appreciate the way Elroy offered to work together assist me, it's good that we are seeing this in more events and distances,” said Mokoka - pointing out that this can and needs to happen in major meetings if South Africans are going to improve.

Gladwin Mzazi, who has respresented South Africa at the world half marathon and 10,000 at the world student games, finished second in an African qualifying time of 28:28.64 with Sibusiso Nzima hanging in after early pace duties to take the bronze in 28:36.85.

Wayde van Niekerk reversed his tactics for the 400m final where he won the championship title in 44.98. 

Taking a slower start from the blocks, Van Niekerk went into high gear over the second 200m to move away from the field crossing the line almost a second clear of second placed Shaun de Jager (45.90) and bronze medalist Pieter Conradie who also made the African champs qualifier with a 45.95. 

“I will go to Europe for some Diamond League events in May and then Akani and I will be training with Glen Mills and his athletes in Jamaica prior to the Boston Diamond League,” said the World Champion. Mills coaches a large squad of sprint athletes including Usain Bolt, and Yohan Blake.

“If you want to be the best, you need to train and race with the best. I am grateful for this opportunity to go to Jamaica as I am always open to learn new things and share ideas,” continued van Niekerk who said seeing his training partner, Akani Simbine, getting injured last night in the 100m was upsetting and this also affected his race today.

Rushwahl Samaai opened with 8.34metres in the long jump, improving his seasons best by 16 cm and only 4 cm short of his Personal Best. 

“The lack of competition was disappointing as I had hoped to get the world lead and possibly the record. I feel an 8.6 will come but the important goal here was to get the title,” said Samaai who was competing as an individual because he had been away on National duty at the World Indoor championships when Central Gauteng held their championship, which was a criteria for selection for the province. 

This resulted in the world’s current long jumper leader receiving his Gold medal and title in his University of Johannesburg club kit.
“No I am not on OPEX funding, nor supported by ASA for funding,” replied Samaai when asked on his financial support towards Rio. 

“I have given them everything they have asked for but have not heard from them. It's for them to get hold of me now as I have given them everything.”

Disappointingly Luvo Manyonga failed to make the cut after the first three trials leaving Dylon Cotter (cga) and Stefan Brits (Boland) to take Silver and Bronze with 7.86 and 7.80 respectively. Both distances are good enough to qualify for the African Championships in Durban in June.

Glenrose Xaba won a lack-lustre women’s 10 000m in 34:23.56 well clear of silver medalist Keneilwe Sesing (35:00.50) and Jenet Dlamini from KZNA who took bronze in 35;20.49. 

Ex KZN Olympian Tanith Maxwell, who was considered a potential winner, did not line up for the race, but is expected to be in Sunday’s Spar Ladies field at Green Point where she will be facing Irvette van Zyl the SA 5000m champion from Friday.

Despite the multiple corners and speedhumps on a less than optimum surface, SA’s greatest race walker Lebogang Shange went substantially under the Rio qualification of 1:24:00 with his time of 1:20:42, only 36 seconds short of his SA record. 

However there was little at stake for the 26 year old Central Gauteng athlete, who stopped and ‘loitered’ along the route several times. The times at this event, and virtually all in South Africa, could not be officially recognised internationally as there are insufficient adequately qualified walk officials in the country. 

Shange has clearly improved with his recent international training and was over eight minutes clear of his closest competition, Wayne Snyman (1:28:46) and Sizwe Ndebele (1:28:58) from Gauteng North. 

Anel Oosthuizen, who recently set a new SA record in the 20km walk, had over four minutes cushion in winning the championship title over Corli Swartz (1:41:46) when she clocked 1:37:21 for the 10 lap course. 

Oosthuizens time was only one minute 27 seconds outside the Rio qualification but over two minutes off her new SA record of 1:34:49.

“I believe Anel will go sub 1:31 in Rio and then we will be in a position to build for the next Olympics,” indicated her coach Carl Meyer who was also responsible for South Africa’s last women Olympic walker Nicolene Cronje, who competed in Athens in 2004. 

“It’s almost an identical progression between these two and both were 20 turning 21 when they qualified. There is so much more to come once we get the opportunities to compete at the next level.“

Swartz was also clear of KZN’s bronze medalist Zelda Schultz who finished in 1:44:18.

Two of the greatest disappointments, in an otherwise brilliant weekend of athletics Championships was the relay event and the composition of the programme. 

Given the obvious strength in depth of South African sprinting, a major opportunity to commence defining relay squads in both genders and distances was blatantly missed. 

The scheduling of distance events for mid morning and afternoon while sprint type finals were scheduled for the evening did the athletes no favours. 

One could perhaps have understood this if the national broadcaster was providing live coverage aimed at peak hours, but TV coverage was packaged and restricted to obtuse hours of early morning and after 23:00 at night. 

If nothing else these championships prove that when the athletes start to work together they can make huge improvements in their performance with minimal input from the various levels of administrations.