Sydney medallists have been excused from the South African national championships this weekend?
Grant Shimmin athletics
Despite media releases to the contrary, fans won’t have the opportunity of seeing all of South Africa’s Olympic medallists from Sydney in action at the South African senior track and field championships, which take place at the King’s Park athletics stadium in Durban this weenkend.
High jumper Hestrie Cloete, who took silver in Australia, has taken up the option of missing the event given to the six-strong national team for next weekend’s world indoor championships in Lisbon. With a recent clearance of 1,97m in Europe, she’s clearly running into form at the right time and another big payday could be in the offing for her.
Hurdler Llewellyn Herbert isn’t in the Lisbon line-up, but he has been having problems with his right hamstring. “It’s nothing major, but it has been niggling and niggling and niggling and we don’t want it to get worse,” said manager Peet van Zyl.
His charge has consulted well-known biokineticist Ron Holder, a man who has worked with several top South African sports stars, but at the time of writing, a decision hadn’t been made on the Olympic bronze medallist’s participation at the championships.
Herbert, who, all things being equal, is certain of participating at this year’s outdoor world championships in Edmonton, Canada, in August, has already missed one world championship due to injury and will be loath to risk an injury-prone season by competing now if he’s not 100% right. The niggle has also kept him from a full training programme, so he may not be ready to do himself justice if he does compete. And we all know he hates losing.
That could rob the championships of an eagerly anticipated clash, between Herbert and fellow Olympian Alwyn Myburgh, who has already cracked the tough Athletics South Africa (ASA) standard of 49 seconds for the 400m hurdles, with a 48,90 at Potchefstroom last month. In truth, though, Herbert is well beyond that, having run faster in his first season in the big time five years ago and his real opposition is waiting to test him out in Europe later this year.
That leaves big Frantz Kruger, the discus ace who will be looking to improve on his Sydney bronze in Edmonton. Kruger, who threw 69,75m shortly before the Olympics last year, has set his sights on going beyond 70m in 2001, which will surely be necessary to get past Lithuania’s Virgilijus Alekna.
However, 65m is probably more where he has his sights set now, given that his final appearance in Sydney means he doesn’t have to throw the mammoth 67m ASA has set as their qualifying standard.
Others in that happy position include 400m aces Hendrick Mokganyetsi and Heide Seyerling and defending 800m silver medallist at the world championships Hezekiel Sepeng.
While Mokganyetsi has already put in a rapid 44,90 seconds for the one-lapper this year, the latter pair have been taking advantage of the fact that ASA’s policy of rewarding good performances at the Olympics in the structuring of their qualifying standards allows them a more measured build-up to the year. Seyerling has been gaining speed in the shorter sprints, while Sepeng has been building up endurance in the 1 500m, so their performances in Durban will be an interesting indication of how close they are to their best with the world championships five months down the track.
Unusually, the national marathon championships will take place the day after the track and field nationals, with a guaranteed spot in Canada up for grabs to any runner winning and achieving the ASA mark of two hours, 11 minutes for men and 2:32 for women.