Sharpen up, Sunette

10 March 2016 - 02:33 By David Isaacson

Coach Terseus Liebenberg says javelin star Sunette Viljoen, who managed to throw a distance of just 52.91m on Tuesday night, will be back to her best once she has ironed out some technical issues. At the same meeting where Akani Simbine raced to a new SA record (9.96sec) in the 100m, Viljoen looked out of sorts as she struggled with no-throws en route to losing on home soil for the first time in years.Viljoen, one of SA's medal hopes for the 2016 Rio Games, has cleared 60m every year since 2008.The two-time former Commonwealth Games champion is also a world championship bronze medallist from 2011 and 2015, and finished fourth at the London Olympics in 2012.Her 69.35m personal best is still the all-African record."The competition came early and there are a lot of things to sort out," said Liebenberg, Viljoen's long-time coach."A few training sessions and it'll be sorted. She'll be ready by nationals [in Stellenbosch on April 15 and 16]."The technique was not good. Her run-up was not 100% and biomechanically she was not using the levers of the body in the correct sequence. She was also not blocking well."Liebenberg said Viljoen's poor performance at Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria had also been compounded by what he felt was an incorrectly positioned right sector line, which was not wide enough and resulted in Viljoen's no-throws.Veteran LJ van Zyl, the 400m hurdles world championship bronze medallist in 2011, ran an unimpressive 46.86sec in the 400m, but shrugged it off, saying he had started too slowly and planned to rectify this at the Gauteng North championships at Pilditch Stadiumtomorrow and Saturday.But the star of the show was undoubtedly Simbine, who has now run under 10 seconds three times in his career. His time was fast enough to make the final of every Olympics and would have been good enough for sixth spot at the 2012 Games. It was good enough for a world ranking of 18 last year and 14 in 2012.Simbine will be back in action at Pilditch this weekend...

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