By winning yesterday at the Fanny Blankers Koen Games in Hengelo Luvo Manyonga emulated the performances of Carl Lewis one of the legends of international athletics.
The Tuks-athlete won jumping 8.62cm which is just three centimetres short of his South African record. More importantly is the fact that it was the fourth time this season that Manyonga won jumping 8.60m and further. Lewis was the last athlete to do so. He did so in 1987. However, in his fourth competition, the American was aided by a wind from behind.
“Luvo’s is so far averaging 8.59m when competing,” said a proud Neil Cornelius who coaches him at Tuks.
Manyonga opened his account in Hengelo by jumping 8.60m followed by a no jump, 8.40m, 8.46m, another foul and lastly 8.62m.
Cornelius ascribes the slight “relapse” in the middle of his series to the fact that Manyonga flourishes under pressure.
“The reason why he managed to jump 8.62m with his last attempt was that the other athletes were upping their act starting to jump further which motivated him. I have no doubt that Luvo is capable of jumping much further. It is a case of the better his rivals perform the better he will do. That really big jump is definitely going to happen.”
South Africa’s Rushwal Samaai finished second jumping 8.34m with Jamaica’s Damar Forbes third with a jump 8.29. Zarck Visser (SA) was sixth jumping 7.88m.
Manyonga’s next competition is on Sunday when he will be competing at the Diamond League Meeting in Stockholm.
The South African record-holder, Antonio Alkana, won the 110m-hurdles in 13.47s.
Anaso Jobodwana (SA) sprinted to a second place finish in the 200m clocking 20.62s. Britain’s Daniel Talbot won in 20.36s.
Carina Horn (Tuks) finished third in the 100 metres clocking a time of 11.35s. Dafne Schippers (The Netherlands) won in 11.08s with Blessing Okagbare (Nigeria) third in 11.16s. The athletes were challenged by a headwind.
Jo-Ane van Dyk (SA) was sixth in the javelin competition with a best throw of 54.33m.
**Wayde van Niekerk set a new South African record in the 200m on Saturday when he won in 19.84s at the JN Racers Grand Prix Meeting in Kingston, Jamaica.
Akani Simbine (Tuks) finished second in his 100m race. Yohan Blake (Jamaica) won in 9.97s with Simbine clocking 10.0s.
It is the first time this season that Simbine failed to dip under 10s in a main race. However, it should be remembered that Werner Prinsloo (coach) said beforehand that race does not quite fit into their planning.
“Considering that our main focus is the World Championships in London I am happy with the result. However, Akani is slightly disappointed as he felt he could have won. I am confident that Akani’s big breakthrough race is still going to happen.”
Usain Bolt won his “Salute to a Legend” 100m race at the same meeting in 10.03s.
**Emile Erasmus (Tuks) won the 100m at the Lathi Games in Finland in a time of 10.35s racing against a -1.4m/s headwind while the temperature soared to only 13 degree Celsius. According to Erasmus he had a bad start.
“The best part of my race was the middle phases, unfortunately, I was not able to retain my top speed to the end it could because I arrived really late in Finland.”
Erasmus and LJ van Zyl (400m hurdles) will compete in Turku tomorrow.
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