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Standout performances at rain-soaked SA Senior Athletics Championships finale

Adnaan MohamedNewsLeave a Comment on Standout performances at rain-soaked SA Senior Athletics Championships finale
By Adnaan Mohamed

Stellenbosch’s Coetzenberg Stadium played host to a rain-soaked finale at the 2026 ASA Senior Track and Field Championships, where several of the country’s leading athletes delivered composed performances in testing conditions.

Among the standout winners were long jumper Luvo Manyonga who after seven years in the wilderness soared to 8.04m to claim gold on home soil. Gift Leotlela, Lythe Pillay, Rogail Joseph, Sinesipho Dambile and Tayla Kavanagh, amongst others all secured national titles in challenging weather conditions.

Leotlela successfully defended his men’s 100m crown, edging Benjamin Richardson in a photo finish, while Dambile added another chapter to his growing reputation in the 200m.

Dambile clocked 20.02 seconds to claim his third national title in the half-lap sprint, having also won in 2022 and 2025. After crossing the line, he raised three fingers on each hand in acknowledgement of his achievement.

“It is very special man, I have to win it back-to-back to back to back,” Dambile said.

“I’ve seen the consistency of 400m when Wayde was there, I saw the consistency of Akani in the 100m and I’ve actually never seen in the 200m someone being that consistent. I wanted to be that guy and I’m definitely working towards that.”

Sinesipho Dambile defended his 200m crown Photo: Team SA

He finished ahead of 18-year-old Naeem Jack, who took second in 20.34, while Mihlali Xotyeni was third in 20.62.

In the men’s 400m, Pillay delivered a controlled run from lane six to secure gold in 45.22. With his main challengers on the inside lanes, he executed a measured race plan to stay clear of the field.

“The plan was just to execute,” Pillay said.

“I knew that Leendert and Udeme were the two on my inside lane, so I wouldn’t be able to gauge them until either it was too late to the finish or they caught me early on. My plan was just run a bold race, run strong. I know where my strengths are this season and just to bear out the weather.”

Bradley Maponyane finished second in 45.77, with Udeme Okon third in 46.02 and Leendert Koekemoer fourth in 46.52. Okon’s meeting ended on a concerning note later in the 4x400m relay when he appeared to suffer a hamstring injury on the final bend and fell after handing over the baton.

Wernich van Rensburg won the men’s 400m hurdles in 50.09, while Joseph took the women’s title in 55.94.

Rogail Joseph Photo; Cecelia van Bers

In the women’s 400m, Marlie Viljoen secured her first national title in 51.72 after a delayed start. Jada van Staden and Isabella Gunter completed the podium.

“Today was only about running for a gold medal, I wasn’t looking for a time. I’m actually happy with the time in the conditions, but today was only about getting the gold medal,” Viljoen said.

Kayla la Grange won the women’s 200m in 23.37, finishing ahead of Anastaysha George and Rume Burger, while Joviale Mbisha defended her national title in the women’s 100m.

The women’s 1500m provided one of the more competitive races of the afternoon. Karabo More surged late to win in 4:11.54, denying Prudence Sekgodiso a double after her earlier victory in the 800m. Sekgodiso finished second in 4:14.38, with Danielle Verster third in 4:16.86.

Denmar Jacobs claimed his first national title in the men’s 110m hurdles in 13.47, narrowly beating Mondray Barnard, while veteran Antonio Alkana placed third.

Marione Fourie won the women’s 100m hurdles in 12.69 despite a slightly slow start.

“I’m really happy with the time, I thought it would be slower. I didn’t know I can run a 12.69 in these conditions, it just means that there’s a next level coming up and I hope that I can achieve that,” Fourie said.

Tayla Kavanagh dominated the distance double at the SA Champs Photo: Team SA

In the field events, Leandri Holtzhausen produced one of the standout performances with a winning hammer throw of 67.70m. Colette Uys secured gold in the discus with a throw of 57.86m and added silver in the hammer (63.53m), while Anje Holtzhausen took bronze in the hammer with 50.93m.

Zinzi Xulu won the women’s triple jump with a best attempt of 12.90m.

Jana van Schalkwyk claimed the javelin title with a throw of 53.12m, while Danielle Nolte won the long jump with 6.49m.

On the track, Edmund du Plessis defended his 800m title in 1:46.63, and Siboniso Soldaka took top honours in the 3 000m steeplechase.

Despite the persistent rain, the championships concluded with a series of measured performances across track and field, as athletes adapted to the conditions to secure national titles.

FIND THE FULL RESULTS HERE:

Ed’s World Champs Blog: Terrific 200s – Brought to you by PUMA

Sean FalconerColumnsLeave a Comment on Ed’s World Champs Blog: Terrific 200s – Brought to you by PUMA

Right, I’m sitting down to write this World Champs blog just after watching two incredible 200m finals, which wrapped up the programme for day seven of the Champs in Eugene, and I’m still buzzing. – BY SEAN FALCONER

The 200m sprint often plays second fiddle to the 100m at the big meets, like Olympics and World Champs, because the shorter sprint is seen by many as the premier event of athletics, the one that gets all the media coverage, and crowns the king of athletics. Ask the average Joe spectator of the big athletics meets who won the 100m and they get the answer right, but the 200m? Chances are they won’t know. It’s not that the 200m is ignored or forgotten, it’s that the 100m just gets more hype and coverage. But there is something really special about the 200m.

Where the 100m is about raw speed and power (on top of the intricacies of starting, maintaining form, not tensing up, etc), the 200m brings in a tricky technical aspect with the running of the curve in the first half of the race, followed by the proverbial million dollar question: Which athletes can maintain top speed most consistently in for the second half. For that reason, watching the heat maps of each athlete in the live coverage was fascinating, seeing which athletes decelerated the least as they hit the last 50 metres. While running is (supposedly) a simple sport – you just one foot in front of the other as quickly as you can – there is also a fascinatingly intricate technical side to every event in the sport, from the 100m to ultra-distance races.

Local Hero Does Us Proud

Before I talk about the winners, I first want to say a few words about our own Luxolo Adams. I was absolutely thrilled to see him lining up for the men’s 200m final in an absolutely stellar line-up. As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, he has had an amazing season, breaking through the 20-second barrier and winning a Diamond League title in Paris, and now he’s appeared in his first global final. Just as is the case with Akani Simbine making 100m finals at this level, it’s a far cry from not so very long ago when we didn’t have any South African sprinters performing at that kind of level. Now to have a finalist in both the 100m and the 200m at this World Champs, added to other success the country has enjoyed in sprints and relays in recent years, really warms this South African heart!

I know some may point to the fact that Luxolo finished eighth out of eight finalists, and that his time of 20:47 was a little disappointing, given that he clocked 20.09 in the semi-final and ran that 19.82 less than a month ago, but one has to factor in that finals are super tense, with athletes making extra sure that they do not false start and get DQed after doing all the hard yards to make the final. Also, the final is usually the third race in jus ta few days for these athletes, so there is also a fatigue factor that can affect times. All that said, I choose to focus on Luxolo making his first global final, and I hope it is just the first of more to come.

Winners Totally Dominate

Now to the winners. In the women’s race, Jamaican Shericka Jackson proved that her 21.67 in the semi-final was no fluke as she went still faster in the final, clocking 21.45 to not only shatter her 20.55 PB, set in the Jamaican Champs less than a month earlier, but she became the fastest woman alive over 200m by clocking the fastest time since the late Florence ‘Flo Jo’ Griffith Joyner set the World Record of 21.34 way back in 1988. Jackson has often played ‘bridesmaid’ or supporting cast to her Jamaican compatriots, five-time World Champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and four-time Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah – she finished third, behind them, in the 100m final at these World Champs – but today she ruled supreme, and her post-race celebrations were a joy to watch.

Then came the men’s 200m final, and the USA’s Noah Lyles successfully defended the title he won at the 2019 World Champs in Doha – and probably also redeemed himself, in his own eyes, for ‘only’ winning bronze at the Olympics last year. Like Jackson, he also looked unbeatable as he led home US compatriots Kenneth Bednarek (19.77) and Erriyon Knighton (19.80) for another American clean-sweep of the podium, as they did in the men’s 100m final. But it was Lyle’s winning time that really stood out. Coming into the final, his personal best was the 19.50 he ran in 2019, and his season best for 2022 thus far was the 19.61 he ran in New York in June, but he blew the final away with a new PB 19.31, which moved him up to third place on the all-time list for the 200m. Only Jamaicans Usain Bolt (19.19 & 19.30) and Yohan Blake (19.26) have ever gone faster.

After he won and realised just how fast he had managed to go, Lyle ripped the top of his running suit as he celebrated. To be honest, I am not always a fan of the way some athletes behave on the track, especially the sprinters, and especially the Americans, but this time I was OK with it. The performance merited going a little crazy.

Catching My Breath

Now we have three days of competition left, and there is still a lot to look forward to. Last night Prudence Sekgodiso made it into the semi-final round of the women’s 800m, taking place later today, as will be the heats of the men’s 4x100m relay, where we hope our SA men can do make it through to the final, but the big one has to be Wayde van Niekerk in the men’s 400m final. And the mouth-watering women’s 400m hurdles will round out the programme. So that’s where I will be in the early hours of the morning.

Image: World Athletics