Podium finishes for UJ runners
AUCKLAND PARK – Coach could see the championship mentality among his team as they went into the tournament.
Athletes of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) brought home medals from the African Universities Cross Country Championship.
Hosted by the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya, the fifth edition of the championship featured 17 universities from four African countries. The Orange Army won the men’s 10km race thanks to Maxime Chaumeton and a silver medal in the women’s 10km race, bagged by Nicole van der Merwe.
UJ athletics coach Elvis Khoza had been optimistic about his team heading into the event following their performance at the recently held University Sports of South Africa cross country championships. Khoza said, “I’m so happy and glad that the team did very well. As we expected, we were going to perform better as I saw us as champions coming into the tournament.”
UJ’s gold medallist at the competition, Chaumeton, finished his 10km run in 30 minute 54 second to claim the top spot edging out Chirchir Geoffry of Egerton University and Ngeno Emanuel of Kenyatta University who finished second and third respectively. Van der Merwe was pleased with her performance given the amount of time she had to prepare for the event and finished in a time of 40 minutes and 15 seconds behind Kenyatta University’s Waza Diana.
Both the men’s and women’s teams of UJ were awarded a team prize for the 10km race while they also won gold for the 4×2 mixed relay.
