Tshepo Tshite and Zeney van der Walt provided the highlights on an otherwise gloomy day for the South African team at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Monday. By Karien Jonckheere
In the men’s 1500m semifinals, Tshepo was left devastated after missing out on a spot in Wednesday’s final by an agonising six thousandths of a second, edged on the line by Britain’s Neil Gourley. But his luck soon turned when Olympic champion Cole Hocker was disqualified for jostling in the closing metres, handing Tshite the final automatic qualifying spot after he finished sixth in 3:36.93.
Meanwhile, Zeney booked her place in Wednesday’s semifinals of the 400m hurdles after finishing fourth in her heat in 55.32 seconds. While not particularly pleased with her time, the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist was happy to have got the job done after running twice already in the 4x400m mixed relay heats and final just two days ago.
The rest of South Africa’s hurdlers were not as successful. Marioné Fourie hit a hurdle and lost her rhythm in her 100m hurdles semifinal, running into the next barrier and eventually being disqualified from the race. Having missed 10 weeks of training with a broken shoulder, she was simply pleased to have reached the semifinals, however.
“I didn’t actually expect to go to the semis. I was just aiming to come to world champs and run a time… I think overall it wasn’t too bad, but things happen and I have to learn from it,” she said afterwards.
Sabelo Dhlamini was fifth in his 400m hurdles heat in 49.50 seconds, so missing out on a semifinal spot by just one place, but was nevertheless inspired by his first World Championships experience at the age of 30.
“Running in such a stadium that has so many fans screaming at you is actually motivating,” he said afterwards. “I could feel the hairs on the back rising up over every hurdle that I attacked because I knew that sometimes people crumble under such pressure, but I think I held my own until the seventh hurdle. That’s where I started overthinking and things like that, so that’s where my race kind of went offline, but I’m happy with what I did today regardless.”
While it was a promising sign that three South Africans qualified for the 110m hurdles at the World Championships for the first time, neither of the trio progressed past the heats. World champs debutants John Adesola and Mondray Barnard both ran 13.57 seconds for sixth place in their respective heats, while Antonio Alkana was seventh in his, in 13.64 seconds.
“I had a bit of a bad start and started hitting hurdles from I think 1 already,” explained Antonio, a two-time Olympian. “My hips were low between the hurdles and that just messed up everything.”
Earlier in the day, Elroy Gelant was disappointed to finish 33rd in the men’s marathon in 2 hours 16 minutes 23 seconds, but satisfied to have at least reached the finish, with so many of the field having dropped out as the Tokyo heat took its toll.
“I’m disappointed with the position but happy with the finish,” he said.
Cheswill Johnson could only manage one legal jump of 7.55m in the long jump qualification, which was not enough to progress to the final, while Miré Reinstorf failed to clear a height in the women’s pole vault qualification.
