Janice Josephs began Friday with a number of firsts: the first South African to compete in an Olympic heptathlon and the first South African to experience competition in the Athens Olympic stadium on Friday, where she was drawn in the first heat of the first track event of the first day’s athletics.
Josephs was first out of the blocks for the 100m hurdles, but was overwhelmed by the majority of the field to finish seventh in 13,69 seconds, significantly slower than her personal best of 13,30 seconds.
The former South African sprint champion will rely on her speed to earn the points. With 33 competitors in the event, she was in 16th position after the first of seven events.
However, after a total of 1Â 878 points from two events Josephs dropped to 23rd place.
Pillay almost makes it
A mere 0,1 seconds separated Geraldine Pillay from qualifying for the second round of the women’s 100m sprint. Jamaican Aleen Bailey won Pillay’s heat in 11,20 seconds, with Pillay recording 11,44 to finish sixth.
This ranked her in 32nd position overall, a time equalled by Finland’s Johanna Manninen from heat four. With only four heats of eight allowed through to the second round, both Pillay and Manninen were eliminated, leaving 31 competitors and a maximum qualifying time of 11,43 seconds.
Only two heats, including Pillay’s, faced a light headwind, which may have made the difference for the Pretoria-based athlete who has a season best of 11,39 seconds.
Triple-jumper not close
World junior triple-jump champion Khotso Mokoena failed to come close to his 16,96m personal best in Friday’s qualifying rounds.
Mokoena opened his account at 16,23m and pushed it out to 16,32m in the second jump, with a no jump for his third.
With the qualifying mark set at 17m for the top 12, it was unlikely that 19-year-old Mokoena would make the cut. Only nine jumpers, headed by Sweden’s Christian Olsen, broke the qualifying distance, which resulted in the 12th spot being allocated at 16,91m, a distance within Mokoena’s range.
Shooter fails to advance
Shooter Martin Senore failed to make the final eight in the 50m rifle prone competition held on Friday afternoon. The South African scored a total of 588 points, ranking him 39th out of a tightly packed 46 competitors.
His scoring series was 97, 99, 97, 100, 96 and 99. The top scorer of the preliminary round was the United States’s Matthew Emmons with 599 points from a possible 600, losing one point in his third series.
Greece beat fencing team
The women’s épée team failed to beat Greece in a preliminary round that would have taken them through to meet top-ranked Germany. Rachel Barlow and Natalia Tychler were able to outpoint their host-country opponents in one bout each, in a match that lasted 26 minutes and 47 seconds and resulted in a 34-15 scoreline.
South Africa entered the competition as the lowest-ranked team of the nine competing countries.
Swimming quartet finish eighth
In the swimming pool the South African quartet of Gerhard Zandberg, Terence Parkin, Eugene Botes and Karl Thaning were visibly disappointed in the men’s 4x100m medley relay, finishing eighth in the second of two heats.
Zandberg led them out in the backstroke, turning in third in a field that included six of the top eight qualifiers, before dropping back to eighth at 50m. Parkin followed with a 1:03,89 breaststroke, with Botes handling the butterfly in 54,57 seconds and Karl Thaning getting his only swim of the Games in 49,25 seconds.
The foursome’s time ranked them 13th overall.
”This is the first time all four of us have swum together,” said Thaning, clearly proud of having been given the opportunity to represent South Africa.
”We had three during the pre-Games meet, but never the whole four. We did our best, it’s just disappointing that we couldn’t go harder at them out there.” — Sapa
Special Report: Olympics 2004