MICHAEL FINCH, Johannesburg | Tuesday 10.30am.
WITH just a sprinkling of the continents stars in action, hosts South Africa will be marginal favourites to take the overall athletics laurels at the 7th All Africa Games which start in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
Although final entries could not be confirmed on Monday, recent medallists from the World Athletics championships in Seville will be on show including 10000m gold medallist Gete Wami of Ethiopia and 800m silver medallists Hezekiel Sepeng of South Africa and Mozambique’s Maria Mutola.
After poor weather ruined crowd attendance during the World Cup in Athletics at the same stadium last year, organisers of the Games will be hoping for a better turnout this time around.
But their cause has not been helped by the withdrawal of double Olympic gold medallist Haile Gebselassie and top Kenyan, Paul Tergat, among others. Gebrselassie injured his achilles tendon during the Seville championships while Tergat was not available.
Besides Wami, Sepeng and Mutola, the Games have also attracted sprint stars Frankie Fredericks of Namibia and Nigeria’s Francis Obikwelu, a bronze medallist in the 200m in Seville.
Fredericks, who has been battling with a sciatic nerve injury since May, confirmed his participation on Monday but said he was unlikely to compete in the 200m.
“I will do the 100m tomorrow and the 4x100m relay, but the 200m is still up in the air because when I run the bend that’s when the sciatic nerve plays up,” Fredericks said.
Ethiopia’s 1500m bronze medallist from the world championships, Kutre Deleche, is also set to compete as is Assefa Mezgebu, the 10000m bronze medallist and Nigeria’s Gloria Alozie, who took third in the 100m hurdles in Seville.
South Africa will be favoured to dominate the field events.
World number one and Commonwealth Games champion Hestrie Cloete has already recorded the best height of the year in 1999 of 2.04m and finished off a successful European season with victory in the Grand Prix final in Munich on Saturday.
Cloete’s only failure came in the Seville world championships where she failed to reach the final.
Commonwealth Games shot putt champion Burger Lambrechts will also be favoured to win his event as will World student Games champion Frantz Kruger in the discus and former world javelin champion, Marius Corbett.
The best race of the championships should come in the men’s 800m where South Africa’s Sepeng and world indoor champion Johan Botha take on the double Kenyan threat of Seville’s bronze medallist, Japhet Kimutai and Olympic bronze medallist Fred Onyancha.
Sepeng got to within two hundreths of a second of beating Dane Wilson Kipketer at the World Championships to establish himself as the world number two, but Kimutai will be eager to turn his fortunes around after having had the better of the South African during the early part of the season.
Botha will also be highly motivated after failing to reach the final in Seville.
For pure class, Wami is perhaps the biggest drawcard after she broke South African Elana Meyer’s African record in Seville. Together with compatriot Assefa Mezgebu, Seville’s bronze medallist, Ethiopia are almost sure to make it a one-two.
In the sprints, world championships bronze medallist Francis Obikwelu, will be Fredericks’ biggest opposition in the short sprints along with Deji Aliu, while the women’s 400m pairing of Falilat Ogunkoya and Charity Opara will be eager to erase memories of Seville where neither reached the podium.
Sprinter Mary Onyali looks a doubtful starter which leaves Olympic long jump champion Chioma Ajunwa the task of also keeping the green flag of Nigeria flying in the women’s sprints.
The competition gets underway on Tuesday with the first round heats of the 100m, 400m and 800m. Only the finals of women’s javelin and polevault, men’s shot putt, hammerthrow and 10000m will be decided on Monday. — MWP