TRACK & FIELD
Taylon Bieldt and Zeney van der Walt in hurdling unison
This article was written shortly before the SA Champs took place in Cape Town , so some details may have changed since then . The info was supplied by The Department of Sport ( TuksSport ) at the University of Pretoria . To find out more , go to www . up . ac . za / tukssport .
The basis of this article was supplied by The Department of Sport ( TuksSport ) at the University of Pretoria . Tuks is home to some of the best sporting opportunities in the world , with more than 30 sport clubs . To find out more , go to www . up . ac . za / tukssport .
Hurdling Highlights
With a jam-packed track and field calendar in 2022 , including the African Champs , World Champs , Commonwealth Games and World Under-20 Champs , the top athletes in South Africa are gearing up for a massive year . Here is some of the latest news coming out of the world of SA track , focusing on the women ’ s hurdles events this month . – BY WILHELM DE SWARDT with SEAN FALCONER
Fourie Just the Third Under 13
Officially , only two South African women have ever dipped under the 13-second mark in the 100m hurdles , but unofficially , SA now has three sub-13 athletes thank to Marione Fourie ’ s recent form .
Marione Fourie
During the Gauteng North Championships at the Tuks stadium in Pretoria in early March , SA 100m hurdles champion , Marione Fourie , managed to do something no other local hurdler had ever been able to do : She ran a sub-13 seconds hurdles race on South African soil . The 19-year-old Tuks Sports Science student won the event in 12.86 seconds , breaking the 13-second barrier for the first time and finishing just 0.5 seconds outside the current SA Record .
Unfortunately , Marione ’ s joy soon turned to disappointment when the official results became known , as the wind from behind had been 2.2 metres per second , meaning her time cannot be recognised as an official record , and she describes the experience as going through a rollercoaster of emotions . “ I was shocked when I saw my time , as I did not expect it . I was hoping to run 13.10 , so for one minute , when I was a sub-13 seconds athlete , it felt amazing . Then came the bad news that the wind from behind was too strong . I was devastated . It means the challenge to run sub-13 seconds still remains ... but I am up to the challenge .”
Still a Remarkable Feat
In spite of the disappointment , Marione can still be satisfied knowing she is only the third local female SA athlete to dip under 13 seconds . Corien Botha was the first to break through the magical 13 seconds barrier , doing so twice in 1998 , clocking 12.86 in Riga , Latvia , followed by a 12.94 in Salamanca , Spain two weeks later . It took 20 years before another South African athlete could emulate that feat , when Rikenette
Steenkamp ran 12.99 in Ostrava in the Czech Republic , in 2017 . She lowered the SA Record to 12.81 in La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland a year later , having run a wind-assisted 12.70 the day before , and Rikenette has posted a total of 10 sub-13 times to date .
The way Marione keeps improving , it seems only a matter of time before she is officially quicker than 13 seconds . Last year her personal best time was 13.47 , but earlier this year she ran 13.29 , improving her PB by 0.16 seconds , and then she clocked that wind-assisted 12.86 . She says her 13.29 is just the start of things to come , but that she still needs to work more on her speed and improve the rhythm going over the hurdles . “ I definitely did not have the best of starts . I have been faster out of the blocks . My execution going over the third last hurdle was also far from perfect and I lost time . If I can execute the perfect race , I will dip under 13 seconds . That is the goal anyway .”
Marione had a near dream season last year . Winning seven of the 10 races she competed in also saw her win three national titles ( SA senior and junior as well as SA students ). She then won her heat at the World Junior Championships in Nairobi and finished third in the semi-final round , missing out on the final but finishing as the ninth-best junior hurdler in the world last year . “ The World Champs was undoubtedly my most formidable challenge , and I allowed my nerves to get the better of me . I could hardly sleep the night before I raced . The good thing is that I have learned a lot from that experience , and the next time I represent South Africa , I will be more focussed .”
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