SA team medal tally passes three figure mark

Alkana, sprinted and leapt his way to victory in the 110-metre hurdles while Semenya blew the 800m field away in the two-lap final.

The track and field section added another three bronze medals to the team tally while there was also a judo bronze from Zack Piontek. The six medals mean Team SA’s total medal count rose to 102.

Alkana was fastest qualifier into the final and took off like a man possessed as he was never headed in clocking a winning time of 13.32 seconds.

That’s a huge personal best for the Blue Downs, Western Cape athlete and he wore a smile all the way back to Cape Town.

His previous best was the 13.47 he ran in Turku, Finland to qualify for this year’s World Championships.

“I knew I could run exactly this time. I’ve done it time and time again in training. My coach Marcel Otto is very good with his hand-timing and he has often had me running times which convert to exactly 13.32. I have told myself for ages that I can do it electronically.”

“I knew the Algerian and Nigerian next to me have good starts so I knew I had to get out fast.”

And that’s exactly what happened as Lyes Mokdell (ALG) and Tyrone Adkins (NGR) had to settle for silver (13:49) and bronze (13.54) respectively.

And this win could just be the confidence booster he needed.

“There are always things I can improve on. My trailing leg really needs to improve so I’m confident I can go faster.

“This is definitely the most important medal of my career and I’d like to dedicate it to my five-year-old son, Logan.

“Now I’m going to take a nice break and will only get back into training next year, probably at the end of March.”

Just 15 minutes after Alkana’s annexing of gold and Semenya had the Team SA fans in the Stade D’Unite out of their chairs as she swept to a 2 minutes 01.00 seconds win.

It was a confident Semenya who started off quicker than has been the case in her recent races. She lay second after 200m and stayed up front as the bell for the final lap sounded at exactly 60 seconds,

She was passed by around three athletes with 200m to go but it wasn’t for long as the No475 vest came around the outside gaining momentum on the runway.

She hit the front as they entered the finishing straight held her position to the line.

“I knew I had to go off quite quickly because I was in lane one and I wanted a good look  in the beginning,” Semenya said afterwards.

“I was happy to wait for that last 200m because I wasn’t really worried about anyone in particular in this field. I’ve felt good at these Games and not concerned about fast times, it was the medal that counted.

“When I came around the outside of that last bend it was like a sling-shot throwing me to the front,” she grinned.

“My two main goals this year were world champs and these Games – to make it to the final at worlds and to get this medal here. It’s also nice to get a bit of consistency going,  with times around the two minute mark.

“Now it’s back to the books and my sports science studies in Potchefstroom.”

The other medals that came SA’s way were Jaco Engelbrecht’s bronze in the shot put as his best heave of 19.55m saw him lying second at one stage to eventual winner, Congo’s Elemba Waka (20.25) but he was overtaken in the final stages.

Then there was another bronze for Fredriech Pretorius in the decathlon.

“I’m not too excited about my provisional score of 7250 because my best is 7791, but it’s still a medal,” said Pretorius.

“A good point was that I threw a personal best in the javelin and finally nailed 60m compared to my previous best of 58.81.

“None of the guys had their own poles for the pole vault so all eight competitors had to use the Zimbabwe guy’s pole and eventually it snapped as he was using his own pole!’

The final bronze of the night went to Julia du Plessis in the high jump as she cleared 1.80m as Seychellois athlete Lissa Labiche won with 1.91m. Geraldine King was eighth with 1.70m.

Other action saw Dumisane Hlaselo fade to 10th (3:51.64) in the 1500m final and in another final Roscoe Engel was fourth in the 100m final (10.45) as Cote d’Ivoire’s Ben Youssef Meite won in 10.04.

The women’s 100m final went to another Ivory Coast athlete, Maree Josee Talou who won in 11.03.

Ofentse Mogowane narrowly missed out on the 400m final when he clocked 45.75 to end third in his semi-final as only the first two went through automatically.

That saw him end ninth of 17 starters and an agonising 0.09sec from going through as a fastest loser. Botswana’s Isaac Makwaala was fastest into the final with 44.87.

Justine Palframan also missed out on the 400m final as she ended fifth in her semi-final (52.75) and the Stellenbosch-based youngster is clearly in desperate need of a rest.

“My first 200m were better than yesterday but I just had nothing today, physically or mentally and need to recuperate,” said Palframan.

Good news for her studies though is that she’ll be helping para-athletics coach Karin le Roux in a ‘shadowing’ capacity for the remainder of the Games and this is sure to be to the benefit of both her and the para-athletes.

The first race with SA action were the T12 para-athletics semi-finals and both SA athletes will contest the final. First, Jonathan Ntutu won in 22.89 and he was followed by fellow 2012 Paralympian Hilton Langenhoven with a 22.81 victory.

And also in action early on in the evening was Claudia Heunis in the women’s 100m hurdles heats as she ended fourth in 13.54 but qualified for the final as a fastest loser. - ANA

(Photo: www.cojabrazzaville2015.com)