The strength of South Africa’s athletes in the 400m hurdles was clearly demonstrated at the Golden Spike IAAF World Tour meeting in Ostrava, Slovakia, on Tuesday night when LJ van Zyl and Ockert Cilliers finished second and third respectively.
The race, which was won by world champion Bershawn Jackson of the United States, was run in cold weather and, therefore, the times were not as good as expected.
Jackson impressed with his effort of 48,77 seconds, while Van Zyl was a clear second in 48,99 seconds.
Cilliers, who did not have a good season in South Africa, did well to clock a creditable 49,78 seconds, which was only 0,15 seconds slower than his best of the year — and the fact that he defeated Jamaican star Kemel Thompson provided a great booster for the rest of 2006.
Van Zyl would have been equally pleased with his performance as it was a great improvement on his time in The Netherlands over the past weekend. He will now return home for a training stint with coach Hennie Kotze before travelling back to Europe to participate in further events. — Sapa