With Kenya and Italy sending weak teams local athletes won’t really be facing much competition this weekend
ATHLETICS: Julian Drew
THE curtain comes down on the domestic athletics season in Cape Town tomorrow with the first athletics Test match in South Africa since 1966.
Italy and Kenya will compete against a South African team and a South African development team on Saturday afternoon at Green Point stadium.
But while one can see the sense in the competition for the development team and some of the other senior athletes for whom this will be the end of the road, it is something our top athletes could certainly do without.
Athletics South Africa (ASA) could have done the interests of the sport more good if our best athletes who have already qualified for the world championships in Gothenberg had been excused from this meeting and allowed to prepare for the sterner tasks which lie ahead of them.
This is underlined by the teams which will be representing the two visiting countries. Italy have brought what can only be described as a second string side and Kenya have entered a team of unknowns which would stretch the term development squad to the limit if that was what they were meant to have sent rather than a full squad.
The only athletes of note to grace the Kenyan squad are Julius Chelule, who won silver in the 3 000m steeplechase at last year’s world junior championships in Lisbon, and Barnabas Kinyor who has a respectable 48.90 behind his name for the 400m hurdles. He reached the semifinals at the last Olympics.
The Italians have brought some of their big stars but with this being the beginning of their track campaign and the end of the local one, fitness levels will be disparate at best and any meaningful comparison of athletes’ standards will not be possible.
The likes of Hezekial Sepeng, Shadrack Hoff and Okkert Brits could all be said to be competing against their will while the top athletes from Kenya altogether and those that have come are not competing in their main events.
Italy’s Guiseppe D’Urso, who finished second in the world championships 800m final in Stuttgart where Sepeng came fifth, is competing in the 1 500m. Gennaro Di Napoli, who is a class act over 1 500m with a personal best of 3:32.78 — which is faster than the South African record — will contest the 5 000m and steeplechaser Angelo Carosi, who made the 1991 world championships final, will also start in the 5 000m.
The only Italian track star who is putting his reputation on the line in his specialist discipline is Fabrizio Mori who, with Kenya’s Kinyor could help some of the local 400m hurdlers beat the 50 second barrier at sea level if conditions are good. That would merit their selection for Gothenburg in August rather than the solitary altitude- assisted marks of 49.96 and 50.01 achieved so far this year by Grant Roberts and Ferrins Pieterse respectively.
Shot putter Paolo Del Soglio and Olympic hammer throw finalist Enrico Sgrulletti will be tough to beat in their events.
In the women’s competition South African qualifier for the 5 000m, Gwen Griffiths, will not be competing in her Gothenburg event and none of those who are will be good enough to benefit from Italy’s Nadia Dandolo. She has twice finished fifth in the world cross country championships in recent years and boasts times of 8:44.36 for 3 000m and 15:11.64 for 5 000m.
In the field events, Fiona May who won the 1988 world junior long jump title for Britain before marrying an Italian two years ago, and Agnese Maffeis, who was in the discus final at the Barcelona Olympics, should prove to be the drawcards among the visitors.
Perhaps the best chances of local athletes achieving world championship qualifying marks, weather permitting, will be in the 1 500m should D’Urso have anything in him at this stage of the season, and the 5 000m where Di Napoli and a surprise from one of the Kenyans could assist someone like Hendrick Ramaala, Makhosonke Fika or junior John Morapedi beat the required time of 13:29.