Posted on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 07:24
South Africa’s top hammer-throw athlete, Chris Harmse, was injured when a javelin hit him in the left shoulder at the national training camp in Pretoria on Thursday.
The javelin was allegedly thrown by a pupil from a local school who was also training at the LC de Villiers Stadium at the University of Pretoria.
The accident occurred shortly after 17:00 and Harmse was rushed to hospital after being attended to at the ground by a team doctor, Philda de Jager.
Janus Robberts, one of the top SA field athletes, said the javelin hit his teammate while Harmse, the Africa champion, was measuring throws by javelin athletes taking part in the training camp.
National team manager Wilfred Daniels said Dr De Jager examined Harmse at the track. She found that the javelin had not hit a muscle.
“Chris was immediately taken to hospital, where the wound was cleaned to determine the damage.”
Daniels told Beeld he had asked the coach of the other group of javelin throwers, presumably pupils, to tell them not to throw from that side of the ground.
“But some people are hard-headed,” he said.
Daniels said he would know on Friday how long Harmse would be out of action.
“Chris was planning to start competing seriously only later this season anyway. Fortunately he is in good form, so the injury should not be a major setback.”
An eye witness who preferred to remain anonymous said the boy who allegedly threw the javelin was badly traumatised.
“Harmse immediately went down and called for help. It was a shocking scene; it could so easily have been much more serious.”
Members of the national training squad are undergoing a variety of tests at the High Performance Centre in preparation for the world championships in Japan later this year.