Tuks dominate track and field at Varsity Athletics

UP-Tuks men were unstoppable on the track as they romped to five first place finishes in seven races in the third edition of the Varsity Athletics competition in Potchefstroom, which was held on Tuesday March 24.

The Hamman brothers of Le Roux and Muntingh will be celebrating together as both claimed the maximum nine points in their respective hurdle events. However, all eyes were on their sprinting sensation of Akani Simbine, who stormed to victory in the 100 metre sprint.

It was not all doom and gloom for NWU-Pukke and Kovsies as they managed to claim victories in the 3 000m and 800m events, respectively.

In the women’s events, Maties’ Justine Palframan was the star, winning both the 400m and the 200m in a fantastic effort. Her performance on the night meant that Maties walked away with the bragging rights, winning two of the four women’s track events on the night.

For the men, UP-Tuks claimed victories in two of the three men’s field events with UFS-Kovsies bagging the other win. Duwayne Boer of Tuks pulled off the biggest upset in the triple jump, when he upstaged favourite Apelele Rasmeni of UJ to claim the maximum points.

Stephanie Greyling threw a mammoth 55.93m in her second throw to smash the Varsity Athletics hammer throw record and win the event comfortably ahead of Chene Coetzee of UP-Tuks, whose best throw was 1.67m short of Greyling. Coetzee eventually finished in second place with Kovsies’ Nadia Botha in third with a throw of 48.93m.

Well known middle distance runner Caster Semenya made her presence felt as she comfortably won the 1 500m. The field was tightly packed for most of the race, with NWU-Pukke’s Semenya, Maties’ Thineke Fourie and UJ’s Mamphielo Sibamba leading for the first 1200m. In the last 400m it was Semenya who showed her class, breaking away from the rest of the pack and by the last 100m she put on the after burners to win the race in a time of 4:30.12, comfortably ahead of Fourie in second place. Sibamba finished in third, well ahead of the next closest runner.

The relay-events as usual were popular on the evening, with the respective teams winning their relays and gaining valuable points for their universities.