IN THE NEWS
South African athletes making headlines
Young Sprinters Sponsored
Early in December PUMA announced that as part of its School of Speed initiative, it has signed up two of South Africa’ s young rising sprinting stars on endorsement contracts, 19-year-old Youth Olympic Games 400m girl’ s gold medallist and former SA Junior Champs 400m hurdles title holder, Gezelle Magerman, and 17-year-old boy’ s under-18 SA Champion Malesela Senona. The international PUMA School of Speed is headed by the World’ s Fastest Man, Usain Bolt, with the South African initiative headed by local Olympian Henricho Bruintjies, who will help to mentor the next generation of South African sprinters through training clinics and track meets.
Dom Runs Unique Mile in Hawaii
Olympian Dominique Scott-Efurd finished third woman and fifth overall at the inaugural Kalakaua Merrie Mile in Honolulu on 10 December, a fun new handicap event where the elite women were given a 27-second head-start over the elite men, with prize money for the top three overall finishers. Edwin Kiptoo took line honours after catching the leading women just before the finish, with Nicole Sifentes and Shannon Osika rounding off the podium. Second man Nate Brennan took fourth after narrowly out-dipping Dominique on the line.
by Kyle Blignaut( gold and silver), Morne Brandon( silver and bronze), and Ignatius Marais( bronze and gold) respectively.
More Global Honours( and bells) for Wayde
Oympic 400m champion and World Record Holder Wayde van Niekerk continues to feature prominently in world awards and rankings following an incredibly successful 2016. He was named as the Best Male Athlete in all sports at the Rio Olympics by the Association of National Olympic Committees, and was named World Athlete of the Year by the world’ s leading athletics magazine, Track & Field News, which also gave him the Performance of the Year award. Added to that, he was voted Male Athlete of the Year by the readers of Athletics International magazine.
Strangely, the IAAF named Usain Bolt its male Athlete of the Year, after Wayde had been awarded the best Olympic award. Now Wayde has also been nominated for the Breakthrough of the Year award at the Laureus World Sports Awards, which will take place in Monaco on 14 February. In the meantime, Wayde had another reason to celebrate. On 29 December, he proposed to girlfriend Chesney Campbell and she said yes!
Images: Jonathan Cross, Reg Caldecott & Courtesy IAAF, PUMA
Juniors Dominate in Angola
SA juniors dominated the athletics segment at the AUSC Region 5 Games in Luanda, Angola, in mid-December, earning an impressive 22 gold, 9 silver and 12 bronze medals, including three silver and three bronze from the para-athletics events. Sprinter Marli Viljoen led the way with four medals, claiming gold in the women’ s 200m and silver in the 400m, as well as helping the 4x100m and 4x400m teams to win gold. Carien Sander also brought home four medals from the same events, with two individual bronze medals and two relay golds. Velmien Hendriks earned three golds in the 100m, 100m hurdles and 4x100m, while Renate van Tonder( long jump, triple jump and 4x100m) and Tharina van der Walt( shot put, discuss and hammer throw) also earned three gold medals each.
Amongst the men, sprinter Malesela Senona claimed the 100m and 200m double gold, and anchored the 4x100m team home for a bronze, while Silusapho Dingiswayo won the 110m hurdles and added silver in the 4x400m and bronze in the 4x100m. Another highlight was a cleansweep of the medals in the men’ s shot put and discus competitions
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