In a space of one month South African athletic ambitions and performances seemed to soar to new heights.
The country on the Southern most tip of Africa has always been a place where much was expected on their re-entry into international athletics and for a period of time it seemed that they would live up to expectations.
The country certainly had the resources and the athletes to back the expectations and then what followed was a drop in performances and the lack of emerging stars to the fore.
At the Beijing Olympics the country's sport seemed to be floundering till long jumper Godfrey Mokoena leapt to silver and in the process saved the proud nation of the blushes and introspection.
And hopefully there was time for introspection as it was sorely needed.
July 2009 and within a space of a month the country of the Green and Gold seem to have much to cheer about, Mokoena again seemed to set the ball rolling with his magnificent new African record jump of 8m 50 in Madrid.
What followed was a flurry of performances by athletes from 400m hurdles through 800m and 1500m to the Steeplechase.
L.J. van Zyl won the 400m hurdles in Monaco in 47.94 to record a Personal Best [PB] and World Leading (WL) performance.
Also at the same meeting Ruben Ramolefi ran a daring race in the Men's SteepleChase and at one time led by 30m at a blistering pace only to falter over the last 500m to record a new National Record (NR) of 8:11.63 which took 5 seconds off his PB. The performance was stunning and the confidence was lifting and hopefully with a little more strength he can go sub 8:10 and edge closer to the magical 8:05
At the same meeting, 1500m athlete, Johan Cronje, came agonisingly close to breaking the long-standing record set in 1993 by Johan Landsman with his PB of 3:33.63 It is only a matter of time before this 'old' national record is taken down and one wonders why it has taken so long for the country's 1500m athletes to come knocking at the door.
And then to the African Junior Championships and step forward Caster Semenya. Just over a year ago we processed an artcle titled, Caster Semenya a new star in 800m and on that occasion the athlete had posted a 2:04.23.
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This year the athlete started slowly during her domestic season and when she recorded a fine time of 2:00.58, no one could have suspected the fireworks which would follow at the junior championships.
By clocking a championships record of 1:56.72 to win the women’s 800m, Semenya placed herself into the cauldron of a fancied medalist in the hotly contested Women's 800m.
After such a brilliant performance her win in the 1500m could have been forgiven for not receiving much attention, however her winning time of 4:08.01 was yet another Championship Record and rounded off her campaign with another Gold.
So all in all, South African athletics looks to be in a good vein of form and with the National Records tumbling we can only assume South African athletics is on the UP.
Despite Time-to-Run being primarily a running site, we thought for good measure it was well worth mentioning the July 7th African record of Javelin star, Sunette Viljoen, who hurtled the 'spies' 65.43 to get the records rolling
Congrats to all the athletes on their spectacular performances and long may it continue.
