Forget the disappointment of last year’s Tokyo Olympics when SA failed to win a single medal for the first time since readmission in 1992, or since Melbourne 1956, to be exact.
There is no shortage of local talent. That was blatantly clear at the first meet of the newly launched athletics series in Bloemfontein on Wednesday night.
The two-hour event hosted no fewer than three athletes whom I believe will become strong contenders for Olympic and world championship medals down the line.
Hurdler Zeney van der Walt looked in sensational shape as she won the flat 400m in a 51.90 sec best.
The 21-year-old, who won the world under-18 championship in 2017 and the world under-20 championship in 2018, was full of smiles after beating a field that also featured SA 400m hurdles champion Wenda Nel.
Not even she expected to go that fast. “No, not a 51,” she said when asked if she had targeted that time.
Sure, this isn’t the same event as the hurdles, but the smart money is likely to go on Van der Walt to dethrone Nel at the national championships in Cape Town next month.
Van der Walt, who plans to race the 400m hurdles in Cape Town next week, narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Tokyo Games, having gone through a slump since 2019. If she fires on all cylinders, she’ll fly.
What really impressed was her focus before the race; she wasn’t just “in the zone”, as they say, but was on the far side. Nothing could have distracted her from her thoughts at that point.
Van der Walt, who plans to race the 400m hurdles in Cape Town next week, narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Tokyo Games, having gone through a slump since 2019.
If she fires on all cylinders, she’ll fly.
Then there’s Marione Fourie, who clocked a 13.10 best in the 100m hurdles to equal Surita Febbraio-Loots’s effort in 2001 as the third fastest South African of all time.
She actually equalled No.2 Corien Botha’s 12.86 from 1998 last weekend, but her time didn’t count because of an illegal tail wind.
The 19-year-old sports science student is ultimately gunning for the 12.81 national mark set by Rikenette Steenkamp in 2018.
Only two SA women have won Olympic medals on the track in the past 30 years, Caster Semenya taking the 800m titles at London 2012 and Rio 2016 and Elana Meyer winning silver in the 10,000m at Barcelona 1992.
In the field events, Kyle Blignaut was way off his best in the shot put, but the sixth-place finisher in Tokyo has huge potential to reach the podium.
The list of hopefuls doesn’t end there. Long-jumper Jovan van Vuuren leapt to a 8.14m best, showing he’s consistently surpassing the 8.10 mark. If he’s able to find another 10 to 15cm or so, that could put him into contention in a couple of top competitions.
And this is just a handful of SA talent. Wait for sprinters Akani Simbine, Clarence Munyai and Gift Leotlela to hit the series in the coming weeks, and then there are still the overseas-based stars such as Wayde van Niekerk and Shaun Maswanganyi, though they’ll probably only be here for nationals.
SA athletics fans have much to look forward to.
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