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Viwe Jingqi could 60 be the future ISSUE 151 of
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Something special was clearly on the cards when the first heat of the women ’ s Under-18 100m at the SA Junior and Youth Athletics Championships took place in the PUK MacArthur Stadium in Potchefstroom on the morning of 31 March . At 10am , 17-year-old Viwe Jingqi cruised to the win in her first-round heat , taking seven one-hundredths of a second off her personal best as improved from 11:47 to 11:40 , and the stadium was abuzz . It meant Viwe had just broken her own SA U18 Record , which she had only recently set in February at the Twizza Super Schools Meeting in Ruimsig . That had been the fastest time by a South African under-18 athlete in just over 38 years , beating the long-standing record of 11.56 run by Mari-Lise Furstenburg way back in 1983 . Three hours later , in the midday heat , Viwe lined up for the semi-final round and booked her place in the final with another dominant run , and in spite of easing up , she yet again lowered her personal best , this time clocking 11.36 . Now there was more than just a murmur going around the stadium : Two races , two PBs , two SA Records … and most spectators were beginning to realise that they were witnessing something really special , but at that stage , few people realised just how special it would turn out to be . Except for Viwe ’ s Coach , Paul Gorries , the World Champion in the 200m at the 2000 World U20 Championships in Santiago de Chile .
Paul had a feeling about the final that evening at 5pm , so without saying anything to his charge after her semi-final , he quietly confirmed the SA U20
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record with the statisticians , which was 11.25 , run by Marcel Winkler in 1989 . “ I knew Viwe was going to come near , if not break that record , in the final ,” says Paul . “ She was cruising in the semi-final , and we had seen in training that she was in really good shape , so the record was definitely something that was on the cards . But all I said to Viwe was , ‘ Go out and do your best .’ I wasn ’ t going to add any pressure on her .”
Records Keep Coming
The rest is history ... because Viwe flew to a scintillating 11.22 in that final , thus making her not only the SA U18 Champion and four-time SA Recordholder , but now also the U20 Record-holder , having taken three hundredths of a second off Marcel ’ s time ! While it was already a huge feat to finally beat a record that had stood for over 30 years , what made it even more impressive is the fact that Viwe is still only 17 years of age , and was competing in the U18 age category , but she beat the U20 record !
The following day , Viwe lined up in her favourite event , the 200m , and cruised to an easy 24.27 win in the first round heat . In her semi-final later that day , Viwe pushed a little harder to cross the line in 23.67 , and now there was talk that she could threaten Evette De Klerk ’ s 40-year-old SA U18 Record , which stood at 23.30 . However , whereas the 100m final had been raced in near perfect weather conditions on the Thursday , the weather gods were apparently not on Viwe ’ s side come the Saturday . The temperature had dropped to the low teens and it had started to rain , so all the experts and pundits were saying that Viwe
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Images : Reg Caldecott , BackSport |