Robert Oosthuizen took another step to booking his place in the South African Commonwealth Games squad with another fine throw in the javelin at Thursday night’s third Yellow Pages Series track and field meeting in Potchefstroom.
The Stellenbosch-based giant, posted his second Commonwealth qualifying performance of the series, his best throw of the meeting pegging into the PUK/McArthur Stadium turf at 82.15 metres on an evening that saw the meeting disrupted by power failures.
There was also the failure of world 800m champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi who had to withdraw from the men’s 800m as a precaution due to injury.
In the opening meeting of the series in Port Elizabeth last month, Ooosthuizen had also bettered the qualifying effort with an 82.96 effort.
Staying with the javelin and former world junior heptathlon champion Justine Robbeson took the women’s honours with an evening best of 60.48m. That effort was good enough to pip fellow Potchefstroom athlete and Commonwealth Games champion Sunette Viljoen (60.44).
Olympic and world championship silver medallist Khotso Mokoena failed to clear the 8m mark as he won the long jump in 7.93, from Keenan Watson (7.87m). There some good action in the shot put though as Orazio Cremona beat out Burger Lambrechts (both athletes throwing 19.26m and Roelie Potgieter heaving 19.14. This is the first time in years that three South Africans have bettered 19m at a local meeting.
On the track Windy Jonas took advantage of Mulaudzi’s absence to win in 1:47.40 while the in-form Juan van Deventer won the 3,000m in 8min 03.90sec. Snyman Prinsloo took the sprint double in winning the 100m in 10.56 and the 200m in 20.84.
Rain before the meeting didn’t dampen the spirits of the athletes, with Commonwealth champion LJ van Zyl posting a brisk 49.50 in the 400 metres hurdles. That’s just 0.01sec slower than his opening effort of the series in Durban last week.
The country’s top athletes will now place turn their focus to medals, when they compete at the Yellow Pages SA Senior Track and Field Championships at the Kings Park Athletics stadium in Durban on 20-21 March.
Article Source: http://www.sascoc.co.za/
