Bayanda Walaza claimed the sprint double at the World Student Games in Germany on Thursday as he lifted the 200m crown to add to the 100m title he won earlier in the week.
His performance concluded a dramatic night of track and field for South Africa where Aiden Smith snatched the shot put gold with his final throw of the competition.
Walaza, the double sprint king from the 2024 under-20 world championships in Peru, exploded out of the blocks with his trademark lightning start and worked that advantage through the bend into the home straight, where he kept his lead to cross the line in 20.63sec, seven-hundredths of a second in front of Spaniard Adria Medero.
It was 12 years since Anaso Jobodwana won South Africa’s first Universiade sprint double.
In the men’s shot put, left-handed Smith was languishing well outside the top three with a best throw of 19.23 when he stepped into the circle for his final throw of the night, finding more than an extra metre to claim first place at the death.
The mixed 4x400m relay team of Mthi Mthimkulu, Precious Molepo, men’s 400m champion Lythe Pillay and Marlie Viljoen won silver ahead of the US, clocking 3min 16.42sec as they ended behind Poland.
Mondray Barnard bagged third place in the men’s 110m hurdles in 13.59sec to miss silver by a few thousandths of a second.
Earlier, Walaza won his 200m semifinal in 20.76, one hundredth of a second in front of Medero. It was the second fastest time of the semifinals, with Korean Lee placing first in his heat in 20.73.
However, it was the South African who found the right gears in the final.
Colette Uys, bronze medallist in the women’s shot put, ended sixth in the women’s discus with a best release of 57.50m.
Charné Swart-Du Plessis was sixth in the women’s 800m.
In the women’s 400m hurdles, Hannah van Niekerk was unable to keep up with the leaders of a fast race, slipping back to seventh in 58.02.
Even the 56.16 personal best she set earlier in the competition would have earned her only fifth spot.
Karmen Fouche ended eighth in the women’s hepthathlon, matching the position her mother Maralize Visser achieved at the 1997 edition of the showpiece in Sicily, with fewer than 20 points separating them. Fouche amassed 5,783 and Visser 5,765.
Gabriella Marais, who won the women’s 100m bronze, was unable to progress beyond the semifinals of the women’s 200m.
South Africa was lying seventh on the medals table with 16 medals, comprising six gold, three silver and seven bronze.
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