The season is still in its diapers but early indications are that South African athletics is in for another humdinger after a weekend of stellar performances from around the world.
Chief among the top performers was the country’s race walkers spearheaded by TuksSport athlete Lebogang Shange, who won silver at the Oceania Race 20km Race Walk Championship in Adelaide. Australia’s Olympic bronze medallist Dane Bird-Smith won the race in a time of 1:19:37 and Shange followed shortly at 1:21:00.
New Zealand’s Quentin Rew bagged the bronze medal in 1:21:12 with SA's Wayne Snyman finishing in sixth place in 1:21:26.
The wind wreaked havoc on the track at a league meeting in Johannesburg over the weekend where two stellar performances earned asterisks behind their times.
Pretoria sprinter Thando Roto blitzed to a wind-assisted time of 9.98 seconds but could not be considered an official performance due to the +2.9 metres per second tailwind.
This was also the case for the country’s top female short hurdler Rikenette Steenkamp, who posted a time of 13.15 seconds which is 0.01s below her personal best. Steenkamp is edging closer to the 12.94s national record Corien Botha set in 1998 in Salamanca, Spain.
Meanwhile, at the Motheo-Xhariep meeting in Bloemfontein, world 400m record holder Wayde van Niekerk won the 100m in a time of 10.24 seconds in only his second race of the year.
At the same meeting Maryke Brits stopped the clock one hundredth of a second short of her PB in the 100m hurdles clocking 13.57s.
Olympic long jump silver medallist Khotso Mokoena continued on an age-defying mission winning the final meeting on the World Indoor Tour with a 7.99m leap.