JOHANNESBURG - A total of 23 athletes have been included in the SA preliminary team to the Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast, Australia in April next year.
The preliminary team, consisting of 18 men and five women, will be submitted to Sascoc on January 4 and any athletes who achieve the qualifying standards before the final team announcement, will also be submitted for consideration.
Spearheaded by 800m title holder Caster Semenya and Long Jump world champion Luvo Manyonga, who both won senior world titles this year, the team also features former Commonwealth champions LJ van Zyl (400m Hurdles) and Sunette Viljoen (Javelin), and IAAF World Championships Long Jump bronze medallist Ruswahl Samaai, 17-year-old High Jump world youth champion Breyton Poole and nine SA senior record holders.
The athletes in the final team will have three opportunities to sharpen up during the lucrative domestic Athletics Grand Prix series in March, in the build-up to the Games.