Latest news with #CapeMilersClub
The Citizen
24-04-2025
- Sport
- The Citizen
Gift Leotlela stuns younger opposition to win SA 100m title
Leotlela won the men's 100m final in 9.99 seconds, just 0.01 ahead of junior athlete Bayanda Walaza. Gift Leotlela (left) holds off a challenge from Bayanda Walaza to win 100m gold at the SA Athletics Championships. Picture: Anton Geyser/Gallo Images Gift Leotlela made a spectacular return to top-flight competition on Thursday, beating a strong field to win the men's 100m title at the SA Athletics Championships in Potchefstroom. Leotlela, who represented South Africa at the 2016 Olympic Games as a teenager, had struggled with injuries in recent years, but the 26-year-old sprinter proved he had regained his best form by dipping on the line to secure victory in the short sprint final in 9.99 seconds. Junior sensation Bayanda Walaza was edged into second place, crossing the line in 10.00, and Olympic semifinalist Benji Richardson ended third in 10.05. 'I don't know how to feel at the moment but I'm very happy. I came here to win,' Leotlela said after the race. 'You have to keep believing, no matter what. I knew if I wanted to continue competing in track and field I had to have that belief that I could get back to the point where I am now.' Meanwhile, Joviale Mbisha won her first SA senior 100m crown, taking the women's final in 11.48 seconds. With title favourite Viwe Jingqi withdrawing after the heats as a precautionary measure ahead of the international season, after picking up an injury niggle, Mbisha won a wide open race. Gabriella Marais finished second in 11.55 and 17-year-old Rume Burger was third in 11.58. Other results In other events, long-distance runner Glenrose Xaba wrapped up a 5 000m and 10 000m double for the second year in a row, securing her 10th national title on the track. Xaba, who had won the SA 10 000m championship race held at the Cape Milers Club meeting in Cape Town earlier this month, coasted to victory in the 5 000m final yesterday in 15:27.95. And former world champion Luvo Manyonga made a statement in the men's long jump qualifying round. Returning to action this season after a four-year ban due to a recreational drug addiction, Manyonga landed at 7.80m to produce the best leap of the opening round. Manyonga will be back in action today as he turns out among the favourites for the national title he last won in 2019.
The Citizen
24-04-2025
- Sport
- The Citizen
OPINION: Athletics SA needs to be reasonable with its selection criteria
Many athletes ignored ASA's requirement to compete at two Grand Prix meetings on the domestic circuit this year, in order to be selected for national teams. Middle-distance runners in action at the Cape Milers Club meeting in Cape Town, one of three ASA Grand Prix events held this year. Picture: Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images Criteria is obviously important when selecting a team in any sport, but that criteria also needs to be reasonable. In track and field, it's standard for the national federation to require athletes to compete at the SA Championships, which makes sense. Athletics South Africa (ASA) do offer exemptions for individuals who are ill, injured or not based in South Africa, so it's not an unreasonable request. In some ways this season, ASA has offered athletes more leeway than usual. In other ways, however, the federation has been too pushy. Though they are not injured or ill, and they're all based in South Africa, four of the country's best athletes – sprinters Akani Simbine and Lythe Pillay, hurdler Marione Fourie and javelin thrower Jo-Ane du Plessis – have seemingly been given exemptions from competing at the SA Championships in Potchefstroom this week, in order to participate at the opening leg of the Diamond League series in China. And this is a good move. Any professional athletes who are invited to Diamond League meetings should be allowed to go, in order to represent South Africa in a series that is considered the pinnacle of the sport outside major global championships, and to make some decent money in the process. Grand Prix meetings However, the ASA criteria this year also requires athletes to compete at two local Grand Prix meetings. This is unreasonable. South African athletes are not contracted to ASA, and it's unfair to force them to compete at domestic meetings outside the SA Championships, especially when they can't earn much in terms of prize money. In response, most of the country's top athletes ignored that clause, opting not to abide by it, which has left ASA in a sticky situation. If the federation enforces the rule, it will have to select a very small, under-strength team for the World Championships in Tokyo later this year. So by ignoring an unreasonable demand, the athletes have forced the federation into a corner Refusing not to be bullied, the athletes made the right decision, and ASA must now scratch that clause in its criteria, which shouldn't have been included in the first place.
