There are several potential medal-winners in the South African team at the World Athletics Championships, but this depends on form and temperament, writes Michael Finch
Such are the vagaries of athletics that South Africa’s biggest-ever team to attend a world athletics championships could either return home at the end of August with as many as 10 medals or as little as none.
At the last championships, in Athens in 1997, it was much the same scenario and had it not been for Marius Corbett’s shock victory in the javelin and Llewelyn Herbert’s spectacular run for silver in the 400m hurdles, it could have been the latter.
Two years later, however, the odds are far more in favour of the 41 athletes that set off for Barcelona last week to acclimatise to the intense heat of Seville, the venue for the sixth International Amateur Athletics Federation World Athletics Championships which start on Saturday. While South Africa’s athlete of the moment is the darling of Coligny, Hestrie Cloete (ne Storbeck), the strength of the team lies among the men where no fewer than nine athletes have the potential to stand atop the podium.
In the 800m, the rejuvenated Hezekiel Sepeng and world indoor champion Johan Botha could mimic the silver and bronze medals they won respectively at last year’s Commonwealth Games.
In the 400m hurdles, Herbert is still the world’s best but is battling with injury, while the marathon quartet of Gert Thys, Frank Pooe and Abner Chipu make up the strongest South African marathon team ever to contest the championships.
In the shot-putt, world junior record holder Janus Robberts has nothing to lose and everything to gain, while Bloemfontein medical student Frantz Kruger will need a good day for him and a bad day for the rest to sneak some silverware.
Then there’s the defending world javelin champion, Corbett – ravaged by injury in recent months but never one to be discounted.
Among the women, only Cloete, marathoner Colleen de Reuck and pole-vaulter Elmarie Gerryts stand realistic chances of returning home with medals.
In theory it means that South Africa is in for a bumper crop, but in practice it never works that way.
The difference between theory and practice lies in two clear criteria.
Criteria number one: big match temperament (henceforth referred to as BMT).
That God-given ability to perform with your mind as well as your body. To ignore the expectations of fickle public opinion back home, forget the enormity of competing on the world stage and concentrate on simply realising your potential.
It’s an element that comes from an inner confidence that borders on arrogance, but is supported by a self-belief impenetrable to external pressure.
While none of our possibles seem lacking here, to whittle away at our list we need first to exclude those who have yet to truly experience an event of this magnitude and therefore remain an unknown quantity.
Robberts is one. He has yet to see more than the South African or American collegiate scene, but at 20 years of age he is a vast talent. Among the marathoners, national champion Pooe and Chipu are unproven, while Kruger has battled with his consistency. The same goes for De Reuck, who despite numerous successes on the American road circuit has won only one major marathon – Berlin in 1996 – after many attempts.
Criteria number two: current form.
If current form had ever mattered to Corbett, it’s doubtful he would have won in Athens in 1997 and again at last year’s Commonwealth Games. But despite a promising South African season, the friendly giant from Potchefstroom has been battling with a forearm and hamstring injury. Injury may not have deterred him in the past, but he remains an outside medal hope all the same.
Then there’s Herbert. His only outing after a five-week lay-off resulted in a fourth place at the Zurich Weltklasse last week. Many believe that all Herbert has to do is turn up to win, but a niggling left thigh injury will erode his biggest attribute: his self- confidence. After his brilliant performance at the World Indoor championships, Botha is yet to set the stage alight during the outdoor season and is battling to find the form that made him unbeatable under a roof.
The same goes for Gerryts, who despite a solid South African season has yet to emulate her local feats overseas.
That leaves Sepeng, Thys and Cloete. Of the three, Thys faces the biggest hurdle – the marathon. A race which depends on everything clicking together on race day.
After his heroics in Tokyo earlier this year, where he ran the second-fastest marathon of all time (2:06.33), Thys is arguably the world’s number one over the distance.
But as he will admit himself, the marathon is a lottery and reputations count for nothing when the final kilometres roll by. As for Sepeng, he is perhaps the only athlete capable of beating the unbeatable Dane, Wilson Kipketer, in Seville. He pushed the world record holder to the line in Zurich and it remains to be seen if the former Kenyan has not peaked too early. Sepeng seems to have found his form just at the right time.
Dare I say it, but a win over Kipketer would arguably be the biggest story of the championships. And finally, there’s Cloete – Commonwealth Games champion, new African record holder and world high jumping’s new sensation. The 20-year-old, who turns 21 in a week’s time, has it all. Ability, BMT, form …
Hestrie for gold? Well, on paper anyway!