Godfrey Khotso Mokoena, South African junior long- and triple-jump record holder, became South Africa’s first medal winner of the 10th IAAF World Junior Athletics Championships in Italy on Wednesday when he finished second in the long jump with an excellent new South African junior record distance of 8,09m.
The 19-year-old Nigel schoolboy realised his greatest ambition by jumping more than 8m for the first time in his career and becoming only the fifth South African to succeed doing this. It was a close and most exciting contest in which Andrew Howe of Italy spoiled Mokoena’s fun with a winning distance of 8,11m.
Mokoena had three jumps of more than 8m and took the lead in the third round with a distance of 7,99m. In the fourth round he added 1cm for his first-ever 8m jump but the American-born Italian clinched matters with his fifth and winning jump when the South African responded with his 8,09m. Mokoena produced a super final effort of 8,06m, but 8,11m was just out of his reach.
During the contest Mokoena broke the national junior mark no less than three times with successive jumps of 7,99m, 8m and 8,09m.
Mokoena hopes to win another medal in the triple jump in which he is currently the world number-one junior of 2004. The triple-jump qualifying session takes place on Friday with the final on Sunday.
Bonolo Maboa, the world’s second0fastest 800m runner of 2004, made sure of a place in Friday’s final when he easily cruised through with a third place and a time of one minute and 49,53 seconds in his semifinal race.
Earlier in the day South Africa’s two fine junior intermediate hurdlers LJ van Zyl and Wouter le Roux both ran second in their heats and easily moved into the last 16 for Thursday’s semifinals.
Van Zyl, who will be defending his world title of 2002, clocked 51,30 seconds while Le Roux’s time was 51,12 seconds.
The two fastest runners in the world this year, Brandon Johnson and Kerron Clement, both won their heats.
In other morning qualifying action, javelin thrower Lohan Rautenbach recorded the second-best distance of the day with 73,59m — a personal best — while his colleague Raldu Potgieter failed to qualify with his 66,70m.
The 3 000m steeplechase also produced one South African finalist when Zolile Bhitane finished fourth in his race with a time of eight minutes and 52,79 seconds. Mandla Maseko, South African junior champion, was eliminated after a time of eight minutes and 53,76 seconds and also a fourth place.
The two 400m semifinalists, Amanda Kotze and Ruan Grobler, failed to qualify for their finals. Kotze, finishing sixth, clocked 56,08 seconds in sixth place while Grobler’s 49,26 seconds (seventh) was also not good enough.
South Africa’s Nkosinoxolo Sonqibido failed to finish the 10 000m final.
American sprinters made a clean sweep in the 100m finals by taking the gold and silver medals in both. Ivory Williams (10,29 seconds) and Ashley Owens (11,13 seconds) were the winners of the races.
In other finals Mariya Smolyachkova (Belarus) won the women’s hammer throw with 66,81m while Ma Xuehun of China took the honours in the women’s discus. Her winning distance was 57,85m.
The men’s 10 00m title went to Boniface Kiprop of Uganda (28:03,77). — Sapa