Gold medal for buffoonery goes to Athletics SA for throwing away two possible medals

The gold medal for Olympic buffoonery goes to Athletics South Africa (ASA) and their selectors.

Not only did they not try hard enough to qualify a men’s 4x100m relay team that would have been strong podium contenders in Rio, but their decision to omit Akani Simbine from the 200m possibly cost the country a second medal.

Usain Bolt comfortably won that race in 19.78sec at the Olympic Stadium on Thursday night, but the next two fastest runners both failed to even break 20 seconds.

Canadian Andre De Grasse was second in 20.02 and Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre third in 20.12.

Akani Simbine, who missed a 100m bronze medal here on Sunday night by just three-hundredths of a second, would surely have improved on his 20.16 personal best, which he ran an hour after doing a 9.89 100m at a meet in Hungary last month.

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There's no reason to believe he wouldn't at least have got close.

But we won’t ever know, thanks to ASA’s bizarre decision to take him off the 200m roster.

One explanation they gave was that Simbine had not proved his form — despite having come close to breaking 10 seconds in the 100m before selection was finalised.

Another was that he had not entered the 200m at  the national or African championships this year.

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But this was incorrect; he had entered the SA race, withdrawing after getting injured in the 100m.

ASA instead selected matric pupil Gift Leotlela who had not entered the 200m at either of those championships.

Go figure.