MICHAEL FINCH, Johannesburg | Monday 7.00pm.
FOR the first time in three days of swimming competition at the All Africa Games, South Africa didn’t win all the gold medals.
In fact, the fifth day of competition was not a good one for the defending All Africa Games champions as they dropped further behind Nigeria in the overall standings.
Nigeria now have 27 gold, 2 silver and 8 bronze, with South Africa on 18 gold, 11 silver and 7 bronze.
Nigeria big windfall has come in the women’s weightlifting where the green and white outfits have picked up a full complement of 21 gold medals.
Luckily, the weightlifting is all but over but South Africa still have another two days of swimming ahead and should narrow the gap. Egypt lie third, but not by much, with 12 gold, 27 silver, 13 bronze..
By the South Africans standards, the swimming competition was a bit of a disappointment.
Four golds, three silvers and two bronze certainly doesn’t sound too bad, but for team captain Brendon Dedekind it was a bit of an egg-on-the-face day.
Barely ten minutes after Dedekind had overcome African record holder Salem Iles of Algeria to win the 100m freestyle, the Zimbabwean pulled off a surprise win the women’s 4x100m freestyle.
So surprising was the Zimbabwean’s win that not even Dedekind had an inkling it would happen.
“I think we’ll go all the way from here,” Dedekind said after his victory. “This was the only little mountain we had to cross.”
The words had hardly been typed into the journalists computers when those pesky Zimbabwean’s forced the local hacks to suddenly rewrite their stories.
Nevertheless there were good wins for Brett Rogers (100m backstroke), Kim van Selm (400m freestyle) and Charlene Wittstock (100m backstroke). For Van Selm and Wittstock it was their second gold medals of the championships.
South Africa also picked up three gold medals in Greco-Roman wrestling, and then another two in judo and gymnastics, while in gymnastics Dewald Laubscher added a late gold in the men’s individual allround event.
There was also good news for the soccer side who, despite a 0-0 with Uganda, still qualified for Friday’s semi-final after finishing top of pool, while the AmaBlommeBlomme drilled Botswana 70-21 in netball and will play Malawi on Tuesday.
The netball team area already assured of the gold medal which will stand them in good stead for the World Championships which begin in Auckland next week. — MWP