Medal hopes looking good for Rio
Our athletics and swimming teams are brimming with talent and there are pockets of excellence in rugby Sevens and rowing.
|||Durban – Forget the kerfuffle with the sports ministry. The real measure of South African sporting success is what takes place out on the sports fields and swimming pools at elite levels.
Fortunately the majority of Olympic sport has little to do with race and everything to do with timing. If you can’t run or swim spectacularly fast, you won’t be selected.
This explains why no SA women will crack selection for the Olympic swimming squad. They aren’t good enough.
The 100-day countdown to the Olympics began this week. For the first time since readmission, South Africa looks in tip-top shape for the Games. Our athletics and swimming teams are brimming with talent and there are pockets of excellence in rugby Sevens and rowing.
Suddenly Olympic boss Gideon Sam’s 10-medal prediction doesn’t seem so outlandish.
Olympic champions Chad Le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh will be bankers for a medal, though, competition will be fierce. Le Clos won the 200m butterfly at the recent nationals in Durban. His 1:55.04 ranks him fourth in the world, but he will have to go much faster in Rio where Olympic superstar Michael Phelps will be out for revenge. A blistering 1:52.96 secured Le Clos gold four years ago.
Van der Burgh’s 2:10.13 200m breaststroke win in Durban wasn’t the equivalent of pulling up trees, but he has the capacity to go faster, as he must. In London, swimmers had to crack 2:09.31 simply to make the final.
Whether she likes it or not, Caster Semenya stands to become the most talked about athlete at the Games. The gender-testing controversy from 2009, and indeed her recent sensational form, make it so. At the recent SA championships she landed a stunning triple, winning the 400m and 800m in world-leading times and strolling to victory in the 1500m.
She won silver in the 800m in London – and may yet be elevated to champion if Mariya Savinova is stripped for doping – and will be favourite in Rio. She’s some way off the 1:53.28 world record set in 1983 – the oldest record in athletics – by the Czech Republic’s Jarmila Kratochvilova, but Semenya is capable of launching an assault on the ancient mark. Fingers have long been pointed at Kratochvilova with long-held rumours that her muscular physique and performance was due to drug use.
A nation’s hopes will ride on the shoulders of world 400m champion Wayde van Niekerk, who may need to produce a world record run to win Olympic gold. His 43.48 win in Beijing last year puts him squarely in the mix to threaten Michael Johnson’s 43.18. Van Niekerk ran a breezy 44.98 to win the recent nationals, but a sojourn through the Diamond League in June and a training camp with Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake after an outing in Rome will sharpen him up.
Sprinter Akani Simbine will also be in Jamaica learning as much as he can, while Anaso Jabodwana, who has yet to run this season, and SA 100m champion Henricho Bruintjies will also be out to reaffirm South Africa’s emergence as a sprinting powerhouse.
Olympic bronze medallist paddler Bridgitte Hartley of Maritzburg has enjoyed a slow-burn buildup, but seems well poised to again be in the mix. She recently won the K1500m crown at the African championships on Shongweni Dam and will use the coming World Cup season to sharpen her game. Elsewhere on the water James Thompson and John Smith won the men’s lightweight double sculls at the World Cup in Italy last weekend. Not all the top crews were there, but they pulled out a solid time. With the bulk of the SA squad now in camp at Katse Dam, coach Roger Barrow will be using the next few weeks to determine the composition of the Olympic team. He has much to work with.
The Blitzbokke may be the mystery men of the Games. Happily transformed and world class, they have good game, but have lacked consistency. Fiji, New Zealand and even Kenya loom as contenders, but the Blitzbokke are capable of beating them all – if they’re switched on.
Suddenly the endgame looms large. Team SA is well set.
– Sunday Tribune