Athletics South Africa (ASA) sent a team, dominated by local athletes from Athletics Gauteng North (AGN), to Nairobi in Kenya for the World Athletics u.20 Championships and several of these local stars also shared in the country’s medal harvest at the event.
South Africa finished in sixth place in the battle for medals at the championship. The country’s athletes managed to bring home nine medals.
Three individual athletes from Gauteng North were among the South African medal winners, while the men’s 4×100 relay team – which included three local athletes – were the big stars of the South African team when they concluded the country’s campaign at the championship with a gold medal and new world record.
South Africa making #WorldAthleticsU20 history ????????
The men's 4x100m relay team wins ???? in a world U20 record 38.51! pic.twitter.com/lEU8HKlvFN
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) August 22, 2021
After the two sprinters from TuksAthletics, Benjamin Richardson and Sinesipho Dambile won silver in the 100m and bronze in the 200m respectively during the championship, they teamed up with fellow TuksAthletics teammate, Mihlali Xhotyeni and the Free Stater, Letlhogonolo Moleyane, to form South Africa’s 4x100m team.
The quartet secured victory in the final in 38.51 seconds, shattering the previous global u.20 record of 38.62, which had been set by the USA at the Pan American Championships in Costa Rica in July 2019.
They also obliterated the African record of 39.33 which SA had equalled in the heats the day before. Jamaica took second place in the final in 38.61 and Poland took the last spot on the podium in 38.90.
Another local athlete from AGN, Matthys Nortje, delivered a stunning performance in a hard-fought men’s 400m final, earning bronze in a personal best of 45.32.
Photo: Dan Vernon/World Athletics.
Nortjé, a former pupil of Hoërskool Garsfontein in Pretoria, is currently studying in America, but he represented the South African team as a registered Gauteng North athlete.
Youth athlete Mckayla van der Westhuizen (formerly of Hoërskool Oos-Moot in Pretoria) finished sixth in the women’s javelin throw final with a best attempt of 53.94m. Adriana Vilagos of Serbia won gold with a massive 61.46m heave.
South Africa’s other medal winners were Miné de Klerk, a schoolgirl from Welkom in the Free State, who won gold in the shot put and silver in the discus throw; Mire Reinstorf from Boland, who won gold in the pole vault for women; Kyle Rademeyer of Boland, who won bronze in the pole vault for men, and Dane Roets of Central Gauteng, who won bronze in the ladies shot put.
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