Cornel Fredericks in Bellville (© Mark Ouma)
South Africa’s continental 400m Hurdles silver medallist Cornel Fredericks qualified for the IAAF World Championships, Daegu 2011 (27 Aug – 4 Sep), at the Yellow Pages Meet in Bellville near Cape Town on Thursday night (10 March).
Right from his explosive start, it was clear that for Fredericks his only competition was the clock. Midway through the back straight he was well ahead of his opponents and went on to win in 49.33 seconds.
This is an improvement on the 49.60 and 49.61 he clocked at earlier Yellow Pages meets in Potchefstroom and Tshwane respectively, and surpasses the more stringent World Championships ‘A’ qualifying standard of 49.40.
“I felt a bit tense before the race. Then I told myself tonight I am running in front of my home crowd in Cape Town. Like I have always said, I want to come out and give the crowd a good race. That is just what I did,” said a delighted Fredericks, who turned 21 years-old on 3 March.
“Now I will just go and build further on this performance. My next target is to defend my title at the South Africa senior national championships,” says Fredericks who is also the reigning Africa junior 400m and 110m Hurdles champion.
Promising results in 5000m
Contested for the first time in seven meets of this series the 5000m produced some promising results. Running in close formation from 1000m, South Africans Stephen Mokoka, Gladwin Mzazi, Kgosi Tsotsane, and Sibusiso Nzima, blew away the rest of the field as they pursued the World Championships ‘A’ qualifier of 13:20.00.
Mokoka carried the day in 13:28.60, the second fastest time of his career. Mzazi (13:30.12), Tsotsane (13:30.88) and Nzima (13:39.22) all produced career best performances. Although they came up short of their target, Mokoka was pleased with the outcome.
“I am very happy because this is a good time. We were running bravely against the wind, pushing the pace against the wind as best as we can. Normally we do not run like this.”
“We shared out the responsibility of leading and pushing the pace of the race. This is a good thing to do if you want to run a good time,” Mokoka explained.
“This has done a lot for my confidence. I hope to defend my 10,000m title at the World Student Games in Shenzhen, China in August,” says Mzazi.
Manyonga upstages Mokoena
Competing for the first time this year, South Africa’s Olympic Long Jump silver medallist Khotso Mokoena took the lead in the opening round with 7.78m. World Junior champion Luvo Manyonga responded in the second round with a 7.88m.
Meanwhile the crowd increasing became animated as they watched the showdown between this duo who use an identical hitch kick technique, with Mokoena (7.97m) regaining the lead on his third jump, before Manyonga replied with 8.00m.
Neither athlete improved in the fifth round, and while both had no jumps in the final round, they received the day’s loudest applause from the fans at the end of the contest.
“I had hope of improving on the 8.05m from last week. It did not come but I hope next time it will,” said Manyonga.
“I am glad to be back in competition after a long layoff due to injury. I reckon this is the start of good things to come,” says Mokoena.
Mark Ouma for the IAAF
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