Alwyn Myburgh and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, two of South Africa’s leading athletes, finished in the top three of their events at the annual ”Spitzen Leichtahletik” European Permit meeting on Tuesday.
Myburgh, the current World Student champion in the 400m hurdles, opened his European campaign with a time of 49,22 seconds that bettered his 2003 best by 0,11 seconds.
Mulaudzi (22), the Commonwealth champion and second fastest 800m runner in the world this year, had to settle for third place after an exciting tussle with two Kenyan rivals, Joseph Mutua and 20-year-old Nicholas Wachira who finished in that order with fast times of 1:44.66 and 1:44.78 respectively. The Vaal Triangle student finished only 0,01 second behind Wachira.
Alwyn Myburgh, one of four contenders for a place in the SA team to the World Championships, started extremely well after a lay-off of almost two months and showed signs that he should improve in the next few weeks.
His main aim at this stage is to achieve the Athletics South Africa qualifying standard of 49,00 seconds. So far, Ockert Cilliers and Marnus Kritzinger, who will have their first outings in Europe next Tuesday, have achieved this time. Myburgh’s time equalled the third best SA time of the year set by LJ van Zyl, the world junior champion earlier in the year. Van Zyl is not available for the World meeting in Paris.
Llewellyn Herbert, the SA record holder, has a best time of 49,47 sec so far this year. He rejoins the international circuit in Poland on Sunday.
Morne Nagel, South Africa’s number two sprinter also took part and showed much better form than a few weeks ago when he could do no better than 10,82 seconds over 100m. He finished in fifth place here clocking 10,42 sec. The race was won by the Namibian veteran, Frank Fredericks, who clinched matters with a fast time of 10,12 seconds. – Sapa