Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and Hezekiel Sepeng were whip-cracking sharp in their opening 800m rounds of the Athens Olympics at the Olympic Stadium on Wednesday night.
Both were happy with their performances after they qualified for the semifinals on Thursday, leading up to the final on Saturday.
Sepeng, who finished second to Andrea Longo of Italy in 1:46,82, predicted exceptionally fast semifinals on Thursday night after favourites Wilson Kipketer from Denmark won his heat in 1:44,69 and Kenya’s Wilfred Bungei cracked a 1:44,84 winner in heat four.
Mulaudzi was his happiest all season after winning his 800m heat against dangerous German Rene Herms in 1:45,72. He put his arm up as he crossed the line, jubilant that the sting had returned to his kick at the finish that edged Herms into second with 1:45,83.
”I’m much happier now,” smiled the little die-hard who had set the pace for the fast heats that followed. Not so happy were pole-vaulter Okkert Brits, 110m hurdler Shaun Bownes and javelin-thrower Sunette Viljoen, who all failed to go through to their following rounds.
For Mulaudzi, it was a huge boost after he had a nightmare 800m in Zurich just more than three weeks ago.
”My legs had bounce and speed. I felt good from the gun and cruised my first round, then kicked with 20m to go. I’ve had good sessions with my coach, Ian Harriers, since I’ve come to Athens because I’ve been struggling the past few weeks. I’m coming into good shape, it has helped my confidence a lot.
”In the next round I’ll take it easy and see how it goes. Time is not important, it’s the winning that counts. I’ll run my own race. The people back home must pray that Africa does well here.”
Sepeng led from the bell, then conceded to his training partner Andrea Longo to finish second in 1:46,82 to the Italian’s 1:46,75, which pushed former world champion Andre Bucher of Switzerland out of the reckoning.
On that pedestrian performance, Sepeng is going to have fresh legs going into the semis after the mercurial times set in the earlier heats.
”It’s going to fly in the semis tomorrow night,” said Sepeng. ”I can see times in the 1:43s to get into the finals.”
Sepeng was pleased with his speed at the finish.
”I’ve been feeling kind of sluggish training in the Village. I’ve had sore joints and that kind of thing, so I rested for two days. But tonight I’ve kicked all those cobwebs out.
”Mulaudzi laid the gauntlet down for the rest of us in his heat. Now I must just focus on myself, because everyone’s going to charge in the semis.”
After a nightmare start to his pole-vault campaign when Okkert Brits misjudged his jump and flew under the bar, the seasoned Stellenbosch athlete regained his composure and succeeded with his second attempt at 5,30m. He then skipped the 5,50m round, then cleared 5,60 with 5,70m the target to gain the finals on Friday night.
But he failed his three attempts at 5,70m after skipping the 5,65m round and had an anxious wait to see if he could make it through among the highest losers, but he had no chance in the end.
Sunette Viljoen struggled with her timing in the javelin and the likeable Potchefstroom athlete — whose personal best is 61,59m — finished with 54,92m, way off the distance of top qualifier Osleidys Menendez of Cuba who made the javelin fly 64,91m.
Bownes said things simply didn’t fall into place for him in his second round of the 110m hurdles where he ran 13,62 seconds for 22nd-fastest behind the 13,23 seconds set by top semifinal qualifier Ladji Doucoure of France.
”I don’t know what went wrong,” he said. ”I was running fantastic times in training, but it was one of those days where everything went wrong.”
He spared a thought for favourite Allen Johnson of the United States who fell over his feet instead of flying over hurdles until he crashed out by diving beneath the second last hurdle. — Sapa
Special Report: Olympics 2004