ASA
17 May 2001 - Johannesburg – Last Tuesday, ASA released the Provisional Squad for the 8th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, to be held in Edmonton, Canada, in August this year, together with the Marathon Team for the same event.
South Africa’s three Sydney Olympics medallists, Hestrie Cloete, silver medal in the high jump; Llewellyn Herbert, bronze medal, 400m hurdles; and Frantz Kruger, bronze medal in the discus, are included in the Squad. Other Squad members include bronze medallist in the 60m hurdles at the 2001 IAAF World Indoor Championships, and Sydney Olympics 110m hurdles semi-finalist, Shaun Bownes; and Johan Botha, the silver medallist in the 800m at the 2001 IAAF World Indoor Championships.
The Squad consists of 28 (twenty eight) track and field athletes, all of whom have achieved the ASA selection criteria for the Squad.
“As can be seen, all athletes who achieved the prescribed ASA selection criteria are in the Squad. Likewise, all athletes who will achieve the criteria for selection onto the Final Team , will be in the Final Team”, said Banele Sindani, ASA CEO.
“We will send a full strength team to Edmonton, based on athletes who achieve ASA’s selection criteria. For the first time our selection criteria make room for younger talented athletes with a good potential for the future, over and above our more experienced athletes who are certain medal hopefuls. This combination ensures that we aim for medals now (in Edmonton), and prepare for medals in the future (in Athens)”, added Sindani.
“We will be helping our athletes financially to go and compete in Europe for their final preparations for Edmonton. We have already sent Hendrik Mokganyetsi (400m) together with his coach, Nico Van Heerden, to Europe”, continued Sindani.
The Final team will be announced between July 20 and 26 this year, and will leave during this period for their final camp in Edmonton.
The Marathon Team is a very strong team of 5 (five) athletes with 2 (two) non-traveling reserves. Five marathon athletes will compete in Edmonton, with the first three finishers in the team scoring for the team prize.
The Marathon Team has chosen to train in South Africa. They have decided not to have a training camp, and they have decided to leave for Canada on 26/27 July 2001.
“We believe that we have as good a chance for a medal or so in the marathon as we have in the track and field events. We will also be helping the marathon athletes financially for their preparations”, said Sindani.
“Over and above this, there is a number of athletes who have not satisfied the ASA selection criteria to be selected for the Squad. We have decided to call these athletes Special Cases. These are all athletes who have achieved the IAAF “A” and “B” qualifying standards, and black athletes who have not achieved these standards but have a great potential to do so”.
“We seek to do all we can to help these athletes to achieve the minimum required standards to be in the Final Team, particularly those black athletes who have not achieved the IAAF Qualifying Standards’, concluded Sindani.
For more information see the official ASA web site at http://www.athletics.org.za/
