Werner Botha, the powerful South African 800m runner, made another impressive bid to be included in the national athletics team to the forthcoming Commonwealth Games when he finished third at the Kusocinski Memorial meeting in Warsaw on Sunday.
The race was won by Wilson Kipketer, the world record holder of Denmark, who clocked a speedy one minute 44,28 seconds in his first race of the year. His time was fractional slower than the year’s fastest.
Wilfred Bungei, of Kenya, who won the silver medal at the Edmonton World Championships a year ago, finished second in one minute 45,37 seconds with Botha 0,32 sec behind.
It was his fifth sub-one minute 46 seconds clocking since late April and once again he enjoyed the satisfaction of defeating Pawel Czapiewsky of Poland who is the 2002 European Indoor champion.
Another South African, Lucky Hadebe, finished ninth with a time of one minute 48.42 seconds.
Elana Meyer, South Africa’s leading long-distance runner, who was hoping to record a fast time in order to be included in the team to Manchester, finished third in the 10 000 metres at the British Commonwealth Games trials with a time of 32 minutes 36,15 seconds.
It moved her into fifth position on the 2002 Commonwealth best performance list.
Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan of Ireland achieved a fine win, recording a fast time of 31 minutes 33,19 seconds.
At the same meeting Elmarie Knoetzen, the SA record holder in the women’s hammer throw, was a disappointing eleventh with a distance of 53,76m.
It was about 6m below her best. – Sapa