Grant Shimmin athletics
The three track and field meets that justify Andy Norman telling Athletics South Africa officials that they have “the premier circuit in the Southern Hemisphere” are upon us, starting on Friday night at Roodepoort.
In keeping with previous editions of the Engen Grand Prix Summer Series, the first meet, which has traditionally been held at Pietersburg, merely serves as a pipe-opener for the remaining two, in Pretoria next Friday and?Stellenbosch the week after that.
Pretoria last year was the scene of Michael Johnson’s new world record in the 300m and this year it will herald the first appearances in the series of?the organisers’ undoubted star turns, multiple Olympic sprint medallists Ato?Boldon and Merlene Ottey, who are also down to appear in Stellenbosch.?
That’s not to say that Friday night’s menu promises bland offerings, however.
Numerous international names will be strutting their stuff along with the two medallists South Africa produced at last weekend’s world indoor?championships in Lisbon: hurdler Shaun Bownes, who took bronze in the 60m?event, and Johan Botha, who followed up his 1999 gold with a silver in the?800m.
Unfortunately, South African athletics goes into the series with mixed?emotions. Those two medals, from a team of just four athletes, were a huge?achievement, especially for a country with no indoor tradition to speak of.?
But there should have been five athletes there and the positive test for an anabolic steroid for shot putter Burger Lambrechts has taken the shine off?the season somewhat, although the case has still to run its course.?
Needless to say, officials will be fervently hoping nobody else turns up positive in this series, particularly not another South African.?
That, though, is a worst case scenario. The likelihood is that some top performances will be produced, though perhaps in the first meet they will?come primarily in events that have less obvious spectator value.?
One of those is the men’s hammer, for which spectators will have to turn up at 5.30pm as the event is wrapped up before the track gets too busy.
Last?year in Pietersburg, Chris Harmse released an attempt which was well off-line and soared on to the back straight of the track, smashing one of the?hurdles, which had been set out for the 110m event.?
The field for that first event contains only four athletes, but Commonwealth?record holder Harmse knows he will face two men who he said he hoped would?”pull the best out of me”. They are the Olympic champion Szymon Ziolkowski? of Poland and Hungary’s Zsolt Nemeth, a man who has spent plenty of time in this country and knows what it takes to perform on the big stage.?
With his own shaven head the nearest thing to a crystal ball around, Ziolkowski predicted “80m throws” at a press conference this week.?
Perhaps of more interest, though, will be the men’s discus event, where the field that has been assembled really is impressive.
The two best young?throwers in the world they were separated by veteran German Lars Riedel at the Sydney Olympics Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania and our own Frantz?Kruger are joined by Canadian Jason Tunks, another man in the top bracket, Hungary’s Robert Fazekas and South Africa’s world junior champion Hannes?Hopley, who won that title six years after Kruger and is looking to follow?further in his footsteps.
The track will certainly be worth keeping an eye on, even if Boldon and Ottey aren’t there for the first encounter.
Bownes, who was advised to withdraw from the Lisbon final after sustaining a slight calf muscle tear, was down to face Olympic bronze medallist Mark Crear, but he withdrew after requiring minor surgery this week. However, Latvian Stanislavs Olijars, the world junior champion in 1998, will still face Bownes. The latter took a tumble in the Lisbon final, so he has a score to settle.
Then there’s Mexico’s Ana Guevara, who faces fellow Olympic finalist Heide?Seyerling in the women’s 400m, Kelly Holmes, who goes in the metric mile,?and Brit Mick Hill, who takes on Marius Corbett and world junior?champion Hardus Pienaar in the javelin. All in all, a tasty entre to the main course next weekend.