#IOLYMPICS - Van Zyl stands tall for Team SA
LJ van Zyl was the lone bright spark in an otherwise forgettable morning for Team South Africa’s athletics contingent at the Rio Olympics.
|||LJ van Zyl was the lone bright spark in an otherwise forgettable morning for Team South Africa’s athletics contingent at the Rio Olympics on Monday.
National champion began his campaign in the final heat of the 400m hurdles after watching his compatriots Lindsay Hanekom and Le Roux Hamman fall out of the mix.
Qualification rules state that the top three finishers in each heat, plus the next six fastest “losers” advance to the semi-finals.
Hamman was the first of the South Africans to line up in a heat, but battled to keep up with the pace of Japan’s Keisuke Nozawa, who created a huge gap between himself and the rest of the field to win in a new personal best time of 48.62. Tuks athlete Hamman, though, had to settle for seventh in 49.72.
Hanekom would’ve been hopeful of going through as he ran a personal best of 49.03 to qualify for Rio. He went out hard and was actually close to the lead, but couldn’t maintain his speed in the last 100m, fading significantly to end seventh as well in 50.22.
World champion Nicholas Bett of Kenya crashed out of the Olympics in the same heat as he lost his rhythm completely as he approached the last hurdle, and he was unable to leap above it and was disqualified.
So it was all up to the experienced Van Zyl, the 31-year-old national record holder with a time of 47.66, who was competing in his third Olympics.
The 2011 world championship bronze medallist went out strongly in Lane 8 – the same lane from which Wayde van Niekerk produced his record-breaking gold-medal run the day before – and led for most of the race.
He needed to avoid missing out on the top three, and managed to do so despite running out of some puff in the last 50 metres.
Van Zyl ended second in a good time of 49.12, and will line up in the semi-finals on Tuesday night (2.40am SA time on Wednesday) where he has been drawn in Lane 3. It will be a tough challenge to qualify for the final as Van Zyl has to finish in the top two to be guaranteed a spot, or be one of the two “fastest losers”.
Puerto Rican Javier Culson and Yasmani Copello of Turkey will be Van Zyl’s main rivals for the two automatic qualifying places.
There was great disappointment for veteran jumper Khotso Mokoena, a long jump silver medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics who was taking part in the triple jump in Rio.
The 31-year-old had just three attempts to qualify for the final, with 16.95m guaranteeing his progress. But Mokoena’s best effort of 16.51m was not enough as he didn’t end in the top 12 either, as he was just 10cm off the 12th-placed athlete Lazaro Martinez of Cuba, who claimed the last spot for the final with 16.61m.
South Africa’s two 200m women sprinters, Alyssa Conley and Justine Palframan, also didn’t enjoy any luck in their heats.
Conley clocked a reasonable time of 23.17 to finish fourth, but it was not enough to go through as a “fastest loser” and was well short of her personal best of 22.84, which would’ve secured her passage to the next round.
Maties athlete Palframan suffered a similar fate to end fifth in 23.33.
ashfak.mohamed@inl.co.za
@ashfakmohamed - Independent Media