Martin Gillingham athletics
South Africa’s top-ranked athlete, shot putter Janus Robberts, has admitted that until last month he had no intention of competing at the world championships and changed his mind only when the world governing body’s rulebook was waved at him by local athletics officials.
The 22-year-old from Louis Trichardt, who studies and competes in the United States, told Athletics South Africa (ASA) earlier this year that the world championships, which open in Edmonton, Canada, on August 3, didn’t figure in his plans.
But a draconian rule, introduced by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) to ensure top athletes compete in its centrepiece meeting, ensured Robberts’s participation.
Having said that, Robberts’s meteoric rise from surprise Olympic finalist last September to world number one also contributed to his decision. “They [ASA] didn’t really put pressure on me,” he says. “They just reminded me of some IAAF rule about not competing.”
The rule was most famously invoked when Haile Gebrselassie threatened to withdraw from the 1997 world championships in Athens. The Ethiopian said he would rather rest in preparation for a world-record attempt at a grand prix meeting a couple of weeks later. Gebrselassie changed his mind when the IAAF said his decision would prevent him from running in future grand prix meetings and could even threaten his participation in the next Olympic games.
Had ASA not opted to twist Robberts’s arm then it’s likely he would have changed his mind anyway. His final throw at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon, on June 2 propelled him to the top of the world rankings. It’s an improvement in performance that, although at a slightly more modest level, is comparable with Bob Beamon’s remarkable jump into Mexico City’s rarefied air 33 years ago.
For more than two years South African athletics aficionados have watched Burger Lambrechts inch closer and closer, centimetre by painful centimetre, to Jan Pienaar’s 11-year-old national record of 20,60m. Sadly, on the night Lambrechts eventually passed it at Port Elizabeth in February he also left behind him a urine sample that revealed traces of the anabolic steroid stanazolol.
Four weeks ago, the shot propelled by Robberts had barely reached the high point in its parabolic flight through the Oregon skies when it cleared 20,60m. It finally came to ground 21,97m from the shot circle’s perimeter to record a staggering addition of 1,37m to the South African record. That represents an improvement of 6,65%. Compare that to Beamon’s 8,90m long jump in Mexico, which was 55cm further than Ralph Boston’s previous mark and an improvement of 6,59%, and you have at least a taste of Robberts’s achievement.
Robberts returned to South Africa from his studies at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas soon after the NCAA Championships and has been training under the watchful eye of his father, Robbie, who introduced his son to the event. Robberts Jnr returns to Dallas on July 12 to spend a fortnight with his new coach, Dave Wollman, before joining the South African team in Edmonton.