The calendar year 2018 has yet again been a busy one for Brakpan’s sportspeople on the local, national and international stages.
The year 2018 was one filled with all the emotions that make sport unique.
This is Brakpan’s 2018 sports year in review (from January to June):
January
• State Mines Country Club’s top junior, Casey Jarvis, underlined his status as one of South Africa’s emerging amateur talents when he claimed the Nomads SA Boys u-15 Championship in George in January. The GolfRSA National Squad player closed with an even-par 72 in the final round at Kingswood Golf Estate to celebrate a two-stroke victory on two-under-par 214.
• United Cricket Club’s Premier XI was made to work hard for a win in their first match of the year when they hosted Actonville Spurs at Hosking Park on January 14 when the second round of fixtures for the 2017/2018 campaign commenced.
• Danie Binneman, Hermien Peens, Chris Botha en Pieter Swiegers van die Ekurhuleni Oos Veerpyltjie Assosiasie het gekwalifiseer om aan die gesogte ‘Last Man Standing’ veerpyltjiekompetisie by die Grandwest Casino in Kaapstad te gaan deelneem.
• Brakpan Wrestling Club’s two wrestling stars Michael Gaitskill and Martin Erasmus were announced to be part of a 169-member national team across 16 sporting codes by the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) on January 30 for the Commonwealth Games on the Australian Gold Coast in April.
February
• Rock Raceway 1660 oval racing competitors (Johan Snyman, Pieter Ferreira, Jannie ‘Mooi Jan’ van Rensburg and Collette Kruger) were part of a TV shoot for Racing with Celebs, that screened on Ignition TV, channel 189 on DSTV in February.
• United Cricket Club secured their spot in the Eastern Premier League top eight with a victory over Springs Old Boys on February 4.
• State Mines Country Club hosted the 15th event in the IGT Challenge Tour qualifying prep-series from February 5 to 7. Ben Follett-Smith sealed a dominant wire-to-wire victory, sealing his maiden IGT Challenge Tour title in Brakpan. A final round six-under-par 66 at State Mines Country Club saw the Zimbabwean triumph with a four-shot margin on 17-under-par 199.
• Members of the Dan Triangle Karate Club (Elie Tchouangue, Bryce Pillay, Jaun-Pierre Vermeulen, Stephanie Watt, Christopher Thela, Garion Olinger, Mateo Pillay, Nathan Groenewald, Lesego Shai, Lusanda Shai and Dirren Moodley) competed in the Ekurhuleni All Style Championships where they won medals and received Ekurhuleni provincial colours.
• Brakpan Wrestling Club had solid representation across the cadet, junior and senior ranks at the 2018 Africa Wrestling Championships which took place in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Members proved their power by bringing back two gold medals, a silver medal and a bronze medal. Cadet Fernando Booysen brought back a hard-fought gold medal in the 48kg freestyle. In the junior ranks, the club’s Matthew Bartlett (wrestling in the 74kg freestyle category) earned a well-deserved silver medal while Jacques Kriel (in the 86kg freestyle category) bagged himself a bronze medal. Martin Erasmus rekindled his rivalry with Nigerian wrestler and African Champion Soso Tamara in the 97kg weight category. The Brakpan champion went one better than his silver medal at the champs in 2017 to get a gold medal placed around his neck. The club’s members then impressed again on the mat and reinforced their reputation by finishing in third position of the total medal haul at the Eastern Gauteng Wrestling Association Open Championship held at the John Barrable Hall in Benoni on February 24.
March
• The final stage of the Sunshine Tour qualifying school was played at State Mines Country Club concluded on March 9. It was England’s Ben Robinson who would finish top of the pile by two shots.
• History was written on March 10 at Carnival City’s Big Top Arena when Italy’s Chiara ‘Beasty Barbie’ Penco defeated South Africa’s Danella Eliasov, to take the inaugural EFC women’s strawweight title.
• Lesego Shai from the Dan Triangle Karate Club won a gold medal for kumite (fighting) at the Karate South Africa All Style South African Championships in Durban on March 24.
• Brakpan-based United Cricket Club’s Premier League XI played their final encounter of the league portion of the Eastern Premier League One on March 25 against Tembisa at Hosking Park. Despite finishing fourth on the table they managed to sneak into playoff stages after third-placed Alberton Cricket Club were prevented from taking part as a result of the Eastern Cricket Union’s transformation targets not being met.
April
• Kickboxing students from shihan Raymond ‘The Whip’ Phillips’ Xtreme Kickboxing Technologies (XKT) Brakpan branch performed extremely well at the Great North 1 Championship in Valhalla, Pretoria. XKT Brakpan’s student brought back 15 medals.
• United Cricket Club’s Eastern Premier League One XI’s 2017/2018 season came to an abrupt end on April 7 at Willowmoore Park in Benoni. The team lost by five wickets in the play-off against Benoni Northerns.
• Brakpan Wrestling Club talents Fernando Booysen and Matthew Bartlett went over to Estonia in April to wrestle at the Tallinn Open, competing at the Kristjan Palusalu Youth Wrestling Tournament (Europe’s largest wrestling tournament). Booysen won a gold medal at the tournament.
• Perhaps the biggest highlight of Brakpan’s sporting year occurred in April when Brakpan Wrestling Club’s Martin Erasmus brought wrestling gold back to Brakpan from the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia. The former Hoërskool Stoffberg learner was an absolute powerhouse in the men’s freestyle 92kg division final, dominating Indian wrestler and double Commonwealth champion Mausam Khatri 12-2. It is South Africa’s first Commonwealth Games wrestling gold medal since 1958.
• The inaugural Brakpan Parkrun took place from the Ekurhuleni Customer Care Centre in Escombe Avenue on April 21.
• Brakpan Rugby Club lost their first Valke Peregrine League match 10-23 against NWU Vaal on April 14. In reverse fixture versus NWU Vaal, played at Bosman Stadium on the night of April 20, the club’s first XV finally got a win, defeating the students 16-12.
• Linda van Vreden, a member of Brakpan Athletic Club, bettered the national javelin record at the South African Masters National Track and Field Championship in Bloemfontein on April 27 and 28 with a distance of 46.95m.
• Two of the country’s most experienced stuntmen, André de Kock and Enrico Schoeman, narrowly escaped disaster at Carnival City on April 25 when their test run with a quad bike through a fire tunnel went slightly pear-shaped. The duo was trying to set a new Guinness distance world record for the longest ride of a quad bike through a tunnel of fire. Fortunately, it crashed just outside of the flaming tunnel, and the two riders only suffered a few cuts and bruises.
• A new Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) bantamweight champion was crowned at EFC 69 on the night of April 28 when former Brakpan resident JP Buys (5-2) defeated France’s Philippe Rouch (7-4).
May
• The first round of the SupaDrift Series kicked off at Carnival City in May. A field of 23 drivers from all over South Africa flocked to the Brakpan venue to battle it out on the tarmac for the 2018 season. Jason Webb took the victory and staked his claim for the 2018 SupaDrift Championship.
• State Mines Country Club talent Casey Jarvis and the GolfRSA Juniors closed out an unbeaten run at Irene Country Club to sweep to a fourth victory in the SA Challenge Cup after beating Western Province on May 18.
• Dylan Mostert hit two perfect shots into the closing hole at State Mines Country Club, twice, to capture his second Big Easy IGT Challenge Tour victory in a playoff on May 23.
• The 2018 International Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) Africa Open Championships took place at the Brakpan Indoor Sports Centre from May 24 to 26. The countries competing were the host nation South Africa, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Australia, Tunisia, Cameroon and Mauritius.
• Multiple Comrades Marathon champions Bruce Fordyce and Frith van der Merwe visited the town to run the freshly launched Brakpan Parkrun on May 26.
June
• Brakpan Tigers Taekwondo, also known as Action Taekwondo Academy, based at Brakpan Primary School, sent a team of five athletes to compete in the Gauteng Provincial Championship, held in Centurion, on June 2. The team performed well and managed to claim a total of nine medals in the different categories they competed in.
• Members of the Dan Triangle Karate Club won 14 medals at the Children and Youth KWF/BKI South African Championships held at the Portuguese Sport Centre in Turffontein on June 2.
• The 2018 Comrades Marathon 90.184km down run from Pietermaritzburg’s City Hall to the new finish at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium took place on June 10 and was, for most local runners, a successful one. Petros Mbokazi of Carnival Runners was the first runner to reach the Promised Land at Moses Mabhida Stadium when he arrived at the finish line in eight hours, 15 minutes and 35 seconds. Brakpan Herald Sports journalist Logan Green, running in the colours of Benoni Northerns Athletic Club, completed his first Comrades Marathon.
• Brakpan Wrestling Club was hurting from the tragic loss of honorary member and Commonwealth wrestler KleinJan Combrink (23), who died after a car accident between Springs and Nigel on June 10. Fellow Commonwealth Games wrestler and member of Brakpan Wrestling Club Michael Gaitskill (22) was also in the car at the time of the accident and was injured in the crash.
• State Mines Country Club’s A-Division players won the Ekurhuleni Golf Union’s A-Division Scratch League title for the first time in the history of the club.
• An incredible chapter was written in the history of the EFC organisation at EFC 71 at Carnival City on June 23, when the DRC’s Champion Dalcha did what had been almost universally ruled as impossible, and downed the EFC heavyweight champion Andrew van Zyl. In the night’s co-main event, celebrated striker and ruthless EFC flyweight champion Nkazimulo Zulu defeated Brazil’s Magno Alves to retain his title.
• Brakpan Wrestling Club’s ‘Bulldogs’ had excellent performances at the Cadet, Junior and Senior National Championships in Durnacol in June. The club’s wrestlers brought back nine gold medals, one silver medal, one bronze and a fourth place from the national championships.
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