Posted on 17 February 2007 - 19:54
Hardus Pienaar, 25-year-old South African javelin champion, was the pick of the competitors when the fourth Yellow Pages Ultimate Athletics meeting took place in scorching heat at Oudtshoorn on Saturday afternoon.
He recorded a convincing victory with an excellent World Championships qualifying throw of 82.96 metres and became only the fourth SA athlete to book his seat on the plane to the global meeting in Osaka, Japan, in August this year.
The qualifying standard is 81 metres.
Other ‘A’ category qualifiers so far are Elizna Naude (discus), Justine Robbeson (javelin) and Alwyn Myburgh (400 m hurdles).
Robert Oosthuizen, world junior javelin champion, also started the year well with a throw of 78.35 metres ahead of Gerbrandt Grobler (76.05 m) and Brian Erasmus (72.95 m).
Lee-Roy Newton, who ran a 100-metres race in Durban two weeks ago, clocking a controversial time of 9.95 seconds that was not ratified by Athletics South Africa, finished only fourth in a time of 10.77 seconds.
The athletes had to contend with a strong headwind measuring two metres per second and South Africa’s leading sprinter, Sherwin Vries, won in a slow 10.66 seconds.
Snyman Prinsloo finished second with the same time while Leigh Julius was third in 10.70 seconds.
VRIES JUST PIPS JULIES
Vries also won the 200 metres narrowly against Julius.
Their respective times were 21.44 seconds and 21.45 seconds. Cindy Stewart, of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, also recorded a double in the women’s sprints with times of 11.71 sec and 23.96 sec.
Estie Wittstock finished second in both, clocking 11.94 and 24.10 seconds.
In his first appearance of the season Johan Cronje won the 1 500 m in three minutes 48.91 seconds - 0.3 seconds ahead of his Free State University teammate, Boy Soke - while Emmanuel Mkhabela won the 3 000 metres steeplechase in eight minutes 40.67 seconds.
SA steeplechase champion Ruben Ramolefi finished third in the 1 500 metres.
Chris Harmse (hammer throw) and Ramsay Carelse (high jump) won their events with respective performances of 71.75 m and 2.20 m.
In the only other field event Samantha Dodd won the women’s pole vault with a 3.90-metre clearance and the best of the season.
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