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SA athletes return triumphant
06/05/2008 22:04 - (SA)
Johannesburg - South Africa's athletes showed they will be the top team representing Africa at the Beijing Olympics in August after topping the medals table at the CAA African Senior Championships concluded on Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The South African's were in buoyant mood after returning on Tuesday with a bag full of 22 medals. Twelve of this total was gold, two silver and eight bronze. Their closest rivals were Nigeria with a tally of 19 medals which included seven gold's.
To cap this achievement fourteen athletes have qualified for the Olympics so far with Athletics South Africa confident that more will qualify as the European season progresses.
Team manager, Wilfred Daniels, said he was pleased with the fact that South Africa broke their previous medal tally record achieved in Mauritius in 2006, but was more excited about the youthful talent that came to the fore at the championships.
"We had a very successful championships," said Daniels. "The mixture of experience and youth did us proud. We had to do without some stars due to injuries, but the youngsters stepped in and put up their hands."
And none more so than the two young sprinters, Isabel le Roux and Thuso Mpuang. Both set personal best times in the 200m sprint and while Mpuang had already qualified for Beijing, Le Roux eclipsed the magical qualifying mark of 23.00 sec by winning her heat in 22.69 and so became the fifth fastest SA women of all time.
Been training hard all year
"It's the first time I have represented the senior team," said Le Roux. "I'm just so proud that I did so well. It's a dream come true. I have really been training hard all year but I also received a lot of support from the seniors in the team."
Others who have qualified for the games were LJ van Zyl who won the men's 400m hurdles in a spectacular time of 48.91. Tsholofelo Thipe was out of the medals but still managed to qualify in the women's 400m with a time of 51.49, while Janice Josephs brought home gold in the women's long jump with an Olympic B qualifying distance of 6.64m.
The South African men's 4x100m relay team consisting of Hannes Dreyer, Corne du Plessis, Sergio Mullins and Thuso Mpuang won gold but will have an agonising wait to see if they are off to Beijing as only the world's top sixteen relay teams qualify for the event. However, they are well placed as this performance puts them in fifth position.
Further gold medals were won by Elizna Naude in the discus, Sunette Viljoen in the javelin, Chris Harmse for the hammer throw, Hennie Kotze in the 110m hurdles and the men's 4 x 400m team of Pieter Smith, Ockert Cilliers, Sibusiso Sishi and LJ van Zyl.
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