The fifth TDK Golden League meeting of the year in Brussels produced two new world records but for South Africa’s representatives it was not a good meet on Friday evening.
Hestrie Cloete finished second behind the Olympic champion, Yelena Slesarenko, and lost her position as one of the IAAF’s four jackpot contenders. Shot-putter Janus Robberts finished fourth with a distance of 20,98m that would have been good enough for a fourth place in the Olympic Games where he did not qualify for the final.
Most of the athletes looked tired after the hectic period in Athens and at the end of the evening Tonique Williams-Darling of Bahamas and triple jumper Christian Olsson of Sweden were the only two one million US jackpot contenders left in contention. Williams-Darling recorded yet another fine victory in the 400 metres in 49,59 sec while Olsson’s opening jump of 17,44m was enough for victory.
Of the two failed contenders, Hestrie Cloete could do no better than 1,96m, while Felix Sanchez, the global star in the 400m hurdles, suffered an injury and did not finish the race.
Slesarenko took the lead in the high jump at 1,96m when Cloete needed two jumps to proceed, but the SA athlete then sat out at 1,98m while the Russian only cleared with her second jump. Cloete then exited at 2m while the new star from Russia made sure of victory when flying over at the same height. She then had the bar raised to 2,06m but without success.
After five rounds of the shot put Robberts was in second place, but two of his opponents, Joachim Olsen of Denmark and Reese Hoffa of the United States, produced something special with their last efforts to pass the South African, who ended the proceedings with the third of three no-throws.
The men’s 800m was also a disappointment for South Africa. A year ago Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and Hezekiel Sepeng clocked their fastest times of the year in Brussels when finishing second and third, but at this occasion Mulaudzi, silver medal winner in Athens, never looked like a winner when he was boxed in and nearly fell about 10 metres from the finish. He eventually finished seventh but still had the satisfaction of clocking 1 min 44,56 sec for his fastest time of 2004. It was an improvement of 0,05 sec on his time in Athens.
Sepeng, who ran in his third Olympic final a week ago, crossed the finish in 11th place with a time of 1 min 45,29 sec.
In the men’s discus, South Africa’s Frantz Kruger (63,87m) and Hannes Ho pley (62,81m) were never in the picture and finished in 6th and 8th positions respectively. Double Olympic champion. Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania won the event with a great throw measuring 69,03m.
The most talked about event was the men’s 400m hurdles when the world and Olympic champion, Sanchez, of Dominican Republic, stopped about half-way in the race and walked off the track. His fabulous run of 43 successive victories since 2001 thus came to an end. The race was won by the Panamanian newcomer and Olympic finalist, Bayano Kamano, in 48,31 sec. Llewellyn Herbert finished in last place, clocking a slow 51,32 sec. Russian pole-vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva set her 8th world record of 4,92m, while Said Saeed Shaheen, the former Kenyan, now running for Qatar, broke the world 3000m steeplechase record with a new mark of 7 min 53,63 sec. The previous record of 7:55.28 was set by Brahim Boulami of Morocco in 2001.
Frank Fredericks (36), the superb Namibian sprinter, ran brilliantly to win the 200 metres in 20,20 sec with Asafa Powell, of Jamaica, winning the 100 metres with a lightning fast 9,87 sec. – Sapa