LJ van Zyl, South Africa’s brilliant 20-year-old 400m hurdler, has escalated from sixth to joint third place in the latest International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) world rankings released by the world body in Monaco on Wednesday.
It follows after his brilliant performance in the IAAF world finals over the weekend, where he finished third with a personal-best 48,11 seconds and defeated some of the best runners in the world.
Van Zyl was world junior champion in 2002 and finished sixth in the recent World Championships in Helsinki.
Americans Bershawn Jackson and James Carter are still ranked one and two, while Naman Keita of France shares third place with the South African.
Kerron Clement, another American and the world’s fastest runner of 2005, has now dropped back into joint fifth place.
The 400m hurdles remains South Africa’s top event with no less than four athletes in the global top 20.
The other three athletes are Ter de Villiers (15th), Llewellyn Herbert (16th) and Ockert Cilliers (19th).
The United States leads with five athletes while Jamaica also has four athletes in the top 20.
The highest-ranked South African athlete is Mbulaeni Mulaudzi (second in the 800m), while discus-thrower Frantz Kruger has improved from fifth to fourth in his discipline.
Hendrick Ramaala (road running) is still in sixth place but Jacques Freitag (high jump) and Chris Harmse (hammer throw) have both moved up one place from the previous rankings. They are now in seventh and 11th positions respectively in their events.
Long-jumper Godfrey Khotso Mokoena is still in 10th place.
Among the women, Surita Febbraio (400m hurdles) is highest of the South Africans with a ninth place, while Elizna Naude, the South African discus record holder, is still in 17th place. — Sapa