After a frustration-filled few seasons, shot-putter Cremona cruised to the best ever throw on South African soil when he landed the sphere a huge 21.12 metres in Potchefstroom.
And just one South African, Janus Robberts, has heaved further anywhere, a 21.97m effort in the United States 16 years ago.
Cremona competed in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow but after an injury-hampered 2015, came the low point of missing a spot on the South African team for last year’s Rio Olympics.
It took a while for the big guy from TuksAthletics to build up his confidence and it speaks measures with legal throws of 20.80, 20.11, 20.10, 20.98 and 20.12 in Potchefstroom.
It finally came, thank God,’ said Cremona. ‘It was a great competition and I knew I would throw far but I didn’t know how far.
‘I’ve been feeling very amped the week leading into the championships so it was a struggle to keep myself at good energy levels. But I held it together and it showed, thank God for getting me here.’
The frustration of 2015 came from an underlying injury, later diagnosed to be the head of his femur bone. I had that injury going into the Beijing World Championships that I didn’t know about. It affected my performance badly.
‘I also could only start training end of December because of my injury. So I never had a good off season. This year I made sure I would build a big base.
‘But I only started feeling my power coming through about three weeks ago.’
On the significance of his big day: ‘This is going to be huge for my goals going forward. I have really achieved more than what I thought. I thought I would throw 20.50 maybe 20.70 on a good day.’
For now Cremona will play it safe. ‘I haven’t planned anything so far, so for now it’s back to basics and training hard. I’m probably going to Europe two weeks before World Championships in London for a comp or two then it’s on to the big one.’

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