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South Africa's Youth Athletes Shine at Championship

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South Africa's Youth Athletes Shine at Championship

JOHANNESGBURG, Sunday, 29 March 2009 - South Africaâ€™s young athletes came to the fore at the Yellow Pages SA Junior, Youth and Under 23 Championships in Pretoria at the weekend with some outstanding performances and showed that the country has a lot of talented athletes to develop for future international challenges.

The Championships produced two new SA Junior and one SA Youth record as well as a hoist of athletes reaching the qualifying standards for the IAAF World Youth Championships in Bressanone, Italy, in July.

Annemie Smith from South Western Districts, who turned 17 on 24 March, turned in one of the many star performances. She not only smashed both the SA Junior and SA Youth records in the hammer throw and easily qualified for the World Youth Championships but her winning distance of 54,21m moved her into sixth position on the South African all-time list in the event.

Smith who is regarded as one of the brightest prospects in this event consistently produced distance exceeding 50 metres this season.

The other SA junior record fell to promising decathlete, Willem le Roux of Boland when he won the junior title with a points total of 6623 points to better the existing record by 268 points.

Former junior national hammer throw record holder, Marizette Badenhorst (Free State) won the junior event with a distance of 52,20m.

Caster Semenya (AGN), the new star in middle distance running, captured two titles by winning the 800 metres in a fast time of 2:02, 04 and the 1500 metres in 4:25, 75.

The two finals of the 400 metres for Youth athletes both produced outstanding performances with seven athletes reaching the World Youth qualifying standards.

In the girls race Anri Steyn (CGA) underlined her talent when she clocked 53, 29 secs -- the third fastest time in the country this year to walk away with the title. She was followed by Justine Palframan (KZN, 53, 72 secs) and Sonja van der Merwe (WPA, 54, 90 secs).

In the boys race Jacques de Swardt (AGN) triumphed in a time of 46,82 secs followed by MC Kruger ( AVT, 48,07 secs), Petrus Coetzee ( ACNW, 48,19 secs) and Daniel Harrison ( CGA,48,33 secs) â€“ all inside the qualifying standards.

In the hurdles Cornel Fredericks (Boland) won the 110m hurdles and 400m hurdles titles for juniors in fast times of 13,91 secs and 50,64 secs respectively.

In other field events several good performances were seen. Tazmin Britz (ACNW) won the Junior womenâ€™s javelin title with a distance of 53,76m, team mate Ulrich Damon the junior menâ€™s javelin title with 74,70m, Stephan Brink (AGN) the junior shot put title with 18,68m , Boipelo Motlhatlhego (AGN) produced an excellent jump of 16,07m to take the junior menâ€™s triple jump title and Charles Burger (Free State) won the youth boys discus event with 56,64m.

South Africa SA Junior, Youth and Under 23 Athlete Results 2009

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