Extensive long jump depth in South Africa
SA’s athletics season is slowly but surely picking up steam with the long jumpers set to be involved in a bun fight for places in the Rio Olympics.
|||Johannesburg - South Africa’s athletics season is slowly but surely picking up steam with the long jumpers set to be involved in a bun fight for places in the Rio Olympic Games.
Luvo Manyonga the former prodigal son of South African athletics, became the latest long jumper to reach the qualifying mark with his first competitive leap in more than a year.
It took a single jump for the 24-yearold to announce himself back on the scene with an Olympic qualifying distance of 8.20m.
SA seem to have struck long jump gold with a host of athletes vying for a place although only the three top jumpers in the country will be selected for the global showpiece.
Should Manyonga secure his place in the South African team, he would complete a magnificent comeback four years since he tested positive for the recreational drug methamphetamine or ‘tik’ as it is commonly known. South Africa have incredible depth in the men’s long jump with five athletes already reaching the qualifying distance of 8.16m.
Leading the charge, Zarck Visser boasts with the second best distance by a South African of 8.41m he recorded at the Bad Langensalza long jump meeting in Germany last year. Defending national champion Rushwal Samaai leapt to an Olympic qualifying distance of 8.18m at a league meet in Germiston last month.
Dylan Cotter also threw his name into the hat when he produced a jump of 8.16m in February. Olympic silver medallist Khotso Mokoena met the mark with an 8.16m jump at last year’s London Diamond League while he could also still qualify in the triple jump.
At the same meeting in Pilditch over the weekend Eben Beukes again ignited the hope of a resurgence in South African pole vault when he cleared the bar at 5.50 metres. This vault was just short of the personal best he recorded three weeks ago when he cleared 5.60m.
Although Beukes is still somewhat off the Olympic qualifying height of 5.70m, only three athletes have been able to go higher than 5.50m since 2006.
Meanwhile, Athletics SA has assembled a quality field for the opening meet of its inaugural Night Series which includes a few mouthwatering match ups.
Mokoena will kick start his season in the hopskip- and jump at the meeting while South Africa’s top women’s long jumper Lynique Prinsloo will continue her pursuit of Olympic qualification. Prinsloo’s move to coach Emmarie Fouché has reinvigorated her carreer and she has come painstakingly close to the qualifying standard of 6.70m with 6.66m and 6.69m jumps at meets in Johannesburg last month.
The 24-year-old surged into the all-time list at the 2013 SA Senior Championships in Stellenbosch with the sixth best by a South African woman with a title-winning jump of 6.81m.
World javelin bronze medallist Sunette Viljoen will also be making her first steps to realising her dream of an Olympic silverware at tomorrow’s meeting.
The 100m sprint will feature both the men’s and women’s national record holders with Akani Simbine and Carina Horn set to line up in their respective events.Horn will go up against South Africa 400m hurdles ace Wenda Nel, who will also feature in the half-lap sprint.
The women’s 200m promises to be one of the best events of the evening with Nel taking on Youth Olympic Games 400m hurdles gold medallist Gezelle Magerman, and World Student Games half-lap champion Justine Palframan.
One-lap hurdles record holder LJ van Zyl will be in action in the flat 400m race while World Youth silver medallist Kyle Appel will face off with Commonwealth Youth champion Gift Leotlela.
The Star