African discus record holder Elizna Naude and Surita Febbraio, South African record holder in the 400m hurdles, won gold medals at the 14th African Athletics Championships in Brazzaville, Congo, on Friday.
Naude recorded a distance of 57,50m and Febbraio, who had her first competition in almost two months, covered the distance in 55,13 seconds, her fastest of 2004.
In one of the best races of the championships, the 400m for women produced excellent results, with South African representatives Heide Seyerling and Estie Wittstock only managing sixth and seventh positions in fast times of 51,67 and 51,85 seconds.
Seyerling, an Olympic finalist in 2000, thus once again failed to better the Athens qualifying mark of 51,5 seconds.
In the 4x100m relays races for men and women, the South African quartets both won silver medals behind Nigeria. The men clocked 39,59 seconds, which was their best of the year, while the women’s 42,42 seconds was 0,01 seconds slower than their best, recorded in Brazil two months ago.
The men’s 400m was another fast race with South African champion Marcus la Grange finishing fifth in 45,74 seconds. He also narrowly failed once again to meet the IAAF’s requirement for Athens.
South African 3 000m steeplechase champion Tebogo Masehla pocketed the bronze medal in a time of 10 minutes and 34,40 seconds behind Morocco’s Bouchra Chaabi, who won by more than 18 seconds.
Masehla’s RAU club-mate, Nicolene Cronje, won the silver medal in the 20km walk, registering a time of one hour, 53 minutes and 47 seconds.
Hezekiel Sepeng (1:48,65) and Werner Botha (1:49,44) both advanced into the next round of the 800m. — Sapa