Newton smashes SA 100m record

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Newton smashes SA 100m record

page 19 Pretoria News

Newton smashes SA 100m record
Tommy Ballantyne
February 06 2007 at 07:27AM

World championship relay gold medallist Lee-Roy Newton became the fastest man over 100m in the history of South African athletics when he was timed at 9.95 seconds in the 100m final at the KwaZulu-Natal Athletics senior provincial track and field championships in Durban on Saturday afternoon.

Should this time be ratified by Athletics South Africa (ASA) he will join an elite group of just on 50 sprinters who have managed to break through the 10-second barrier in the history of world athletics and will also be in line for an ASA incentive bonus of R50 000 for any athlete who breaks a South African record.

Running in Saturday’s 100m final, Newton flashed across the finish line virtually deadlocked with his Fast Feet clubmate and training partner, Dean Wicks, who was timed at an equally impressive 10.00sec.

Fast Feet coaches, Mark Labuschagne and Victor Vaz, said they were “astounded” when they glanced at their stop-watches to see that both showed sub-10 seconds.

‘We could not even separate them visually’
“We could not even separate them visually,” said Vaz.

Labuschagne said that he had been “ecstatic” at the time.

"I was astounded to learn that the official hand-held stop-watch time was 9.78 which compared with my time of 9.93 and Victor’s 9.78 while the official electronic time showed up as 9.95.

“Now we face an agonising week or so to see if ASA are going to ratify the time, and if they do so, it will not only be a new South African record, but one of the fastest times for the 100m.”

The official ASA record for the 100m stands at 10.06sec and was set in 1988 by Johan Rossouw.

‘I knew it was a fast race’
Labuschagne said that Wicks’s time of 10.00sec for the 100m was probably the fastest time ever recorded for a white athlete, and was all the more remarkable as he had achieved it within two hours of having won the 200m final in 20.33sec.

Newton, who is 28 years old and lives in Durban’s Morningside suburb, was formerly from Port Elizabeth. He came to Durban in 1999.

Newton has placed second the past four years in succession at the national senior championships after winning the SA Under-23 100m title in 2000.

“I knew it was a fast race,” said Newton, “but everything seemed to fall into place from when I came out of the starting blocks until I breasted the tape.”

Newton said he had been a little wary at the start as he had false-started the first time and had waited for the gun.

“When Mark came up to me to show me his stop-watch we were amazed,” said Newton.

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Three cheers for random .3 PRs :smiley:

And just to piss everyone off… The white man is still stuck at 10.00 even with an intergalactic PB.

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On January 26th, he placed 4th with 10.48 (wind +1.2) in Secunda. On February 2nd, he finished 3rd with 10.45 (wind +1.0) in Potchefstroom. Both place are in high altitude.
Now, the very next day, he runs 9.95 at low altitude? Why wait so long to give the news?

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I’m gonna check Ebay to see if I can buy me a sub 10 time aswell…

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Training partner Dean Wicks was second in that race with 10.00. He also won the 200m that day in 20.33. His best mark until now at 100m is 10.42 (Durban) in 2004, no result in 2005, and 10.78 high altitude in 2006. No competition in 2007. At 200m, his PB was 21.45 high altitude (21.45, not 20.45).

:confused:

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LOL…I’m gonna draft this meet into my race schedual…might help me get some funding from UKA when I run 9.94 and 20.11… on the same day off course… :smiley:

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whats up with this meet?? is this for real? what was the wind

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Heat 3: 1 Jason Gardener (Eng) 10.41secs, 2 Soji Fasuba (Ngr) 10.43, 3 Eric Nkansah (Gha) 10.44, 4 Lee-Roy Newton (Rsa) 10.51, 5 Josephus Thomas (Sle) 10.54, 6 Matthew Thomas (Lca) 10.70, 7 Jack Iroga (Sol) 11.13

he was a first-round elimination in the 100m at the Commonwealth Games this time a year ago.

maybe Sth Africa’s new coaching consultant Dr Ekkart Arbeit is working his magic

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lol
i wondered what happened to that guy. Smart guy from what i understand.

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Yes but didn’t Fasuba (9.8x pr) run 10.43? Couldn’t you say the exact same thing about him?

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you could, but you’d look silly if you did because fasuba was walking through the rounds while Newtown didn’t get out of his heat because his best was way too slow. Fasuba went something like 10.1 for silver in the final and made Powell work very hard . Powell didn’t break 10sec but went on to run a couple of 9.77 later in the season

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I’m just saying, you never know what happened that day. How many times did Fasuba break 10.1 besides his 9.9x and 9.8x in Doha? Not many if I recall and some well above 10.1.

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does anyone have the full results 4 this race?

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http://www.superathletics.co.za/default.asp?id=204090&des=article&scat=superathletics/satrackandfield

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thx bt i want the results 4 the full field.

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i think the wind in durban must b on something cos i remember when frankie, morne and sherwin all ran pbs or sbs at the same venue against a 2m/s wind i think it was. i bet the house,car and wife that niether wicks nor newton will run a sub 10.3 4 the rest of the season.

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The coach had time was 9.93 and electric had 9.95…

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Posted on Tuesday, February 06, 2007 - 22:44

The best-kept secret in South African athletics. That is how Lee-Roy Newton’s time of 9.95 sec in the 100 metres in Durban last Saturday can be described.
“I am very happy about the time, said the Durban sprinter. I’m now waiting to hear whether Athletics South Africa will recognise it as the new SA record,” Newton said on Tuesday.

Even Linda Ferns, CEO of Athletics SA, only heard on Tuesday that a South African sprinter had, for the first time, broken through the ten-seconds barrier for the 100 m.

An even bigger surprise was the news that Newton’s training partner, Dean Wicks, had clocked 10.00 in coming second, also breaking Johan Rossouw’s national record of 10.06 sec.

Newton ran at Potchefstroom last Friday night, finishing only third in 10.45 sec in a Yellow Pages meeting held at altitude.

His time was a little better than the 10.48 sec he had recorded in finishing fourth in another Yellow Pages meeting a week earlier at Secunda, a track known for fast sprint times.

Ferns said the application to recognise Newton’s time in Durban would be studied. “We will have to look at all the technical details and must ensure that a test for performance enhancers was done.”

WAS COMPLETELY RELAXED

Newton has been asked for an explanation for his unexpected record time.

“I’ve been waiting for two years for such a breakthrough,” he said on Tuesday. “I get too tense when I run but on Saturday I was completely relaxed.”

Even his coach, Marc Labuschagne, was caught off guard. "My hand time showed 9.93 sec. The wind reading was an permissible 1.8 m/s but there was no official available to test for performance enhancers.

“We immediately went to the nearby rugby stadium where the Sharks were playing against the Bulls and found someone to conduct the tests,” Labuschagne said.

Rossouw set his 10.06 sec in the rarefied atmosphere in Johannesburg in 1988.

Newton will not take part in the next Yellow Pages meeting in Port Elizabeth on Friday night.

Labuschagne explained that the sprinter would stick to his pre-planned programme and would next be in action at Oudtshoorn on February 17.

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Yea and the official hand time was 9.78 equaling the other coach’s stopwatch.

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by De Jongh Borchardt

Posted on 07 February 2007 - 23:16

The dust has not settled since the announcement that Lee-Roy Newton set a new South African record of 9.95 seconds in the 100 metres in Durban last weekend.
The wind-gauge used at the King’s Park track could be ‘Exhibit A’ in the ‘investigation’ to determine the validity of Newton’s time.

The SA record of 10.06 s was set by Johan Rossouw in 1988.

Newton and Labuschagne are convinced there is nothing wrong with the winning time of 9.95s, but Athletics SA have to investigate the circumstances before recognising it as a new record.

“We are still waiting for the technical report, which includes the photograph taken at the finish line, a report about the wind-gauge and drugs tests,” ASA general manager Linda Ferns said on Wednesday.

“It could take a few weeks. Until then we cannot comment,” she added.

NOTHING WRONG WITH THE GAUGE

The gauge used at King’s Park to measure the strength of the wind has been the cause of raised eyebrows before.

Labuschagne said there was nothing wrong with the gauge used last Saturday but that the equipment had been sent to Johannesburg to be tested.

The official wind speed recorded during Newton’s race was 1.8 metres per second from behind. The limit is 2.0 m/s.

During the two races before the 100 m final, in which Newton’s teammate Dean Wicks was second in an equally outstanding 10.00s, the wind readings were 3.1 m/s and 2.7 m/s.

During an Engen meeting in Durban on April 11, 2003, Frankie Fredericks (10.00) and Sherwin Vries (10.08) recorded the best coastal times ever in South Africa. The accuracy of the wind readings was questioned afterwards.

It was alleged at the time that the gauge had been blown over and damaged, causing inaccurate readings.

Some athletes said after the race that the wind had felt stronger than the official reading of 1.3 m/s. The gauge was later tested and found to be accurate.

Jean du Randt won the SA title in 10.34 sec in Durban on April 16, 2005, but the wind speed was 2.5 m/s; well over the limit.

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