Blast from the past: Cloete vaults to victory at world champs
Today in SA sports history: August 12
1893 — Cyclist Laurens Meintjes becomes SA’s first official world champion in any sport, winning the 50-mile (80.4km) race at the inaugural world track championships in Chicago as he clocked 2hr 11 min 6-4/5ths sec. He finished ahead of Charles Albrecht of Germany and an American listed as B Ulbricht. Meintjes’s home country was listed as Transvaal. At another competition in Springfield the next month he broke three world records in one day, going three miles (4.8km) in 6 min 45-1/5 sec, four miles (6.4km) in 8 min 57-3/5 sec and five miles (8km) in 11 min 6-1/5 sec. Meintjes, who was born in Aberdeen in the Eastern Cape, is no direct descendant of Louis Meintjes. ..
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