Carina Horn (Tuks/HPC) got oh so close this afternoon (23/06) to getting the bragging rights for being South Africa’s fastest woman when she clocked a time of 11.07s in the 100m final of the Africa Championships in Durban.
The Africa record-holder, Murielle Ahouré (Ivory Coast), won in 10.99s with Horn finishing second and Marie-Josee Ta Lou (Ivory Coast) third in 11.15s.
What was exciting about Horn’s performance is the fact that it would seem as if she is getting faster and faster each times she races.
Three weeks ago in Poland she managed to run a time of 11.18s in the heats as well as in the final. Two weeks ago at a meeting at Tuks she also ran 11.18s. Yesterday in the heats her winning time was 11.14s and now she clocked 11.07s. It is a sure sign that the Tuks/HPC-athlete is on track of giving a good account of herself at the Olympic Games in Rio.
Just for interest. Last year she equalled Evette de Klerk’s long- standing South African record of 25 years when she ran 11.06s in Madrid so she needed just 0.02s to become the sole-holder of the national record.
Horn admitted that it was slightly disappointing to miss out on getting the record but then again it was also highly motivating for her to break 11.10s for the first time the season.
Ben Youssef Meite (Ivory Coast) won the men’s 100m in 9.95s. Lesotho’s Mosito Lehata was second in 10.04s and South Africa’s Akani Simbine (Tuks/HPC) was third in 10.05s. Gift Leotlela (Grade 12-learner TuksSport High School) was 4th in 10.24s. Unfortunately the wind from behind was too strong during the race.
South Africa’s Ruswahl Samaai won the long jump with a personal best effort of 8.40m (+2.9m/s).
The former junior world champion, Luvo Manyonga (Tuks/HPC), was second with a jump of 8.23m and Ruri Raammkolodi (Botswana) third jumping 7.90m.
Neil Cornelius, Manyonga’s coach, was happy with how things played out.
“I had Luvo doing only four jumps as he had a slight hip injury. We did not want to risk aggravating it especially since the Olympics is not that far of.
“Luvo did exactly what I wanted him to do. With his first attempt he jumped 7.84m so as to just make sure he has got a legal jump on the score board. Then he jumped 8.20m followed by 8.23m.
“The windy conditions made things quite tricky which meant that he had to keep his wits about him. Hopefully this proves that he will be able to adapt to whatever the weather conditions in Rio is going to be.”
Fredriech Pretorius (Tuks) won the decathlon with a total 7780 points which is 25 points better than his previous best.
South Africa’s Claudia Heunis won the 100-hurdles in 13.35s. It was exciting was to see Taylon Bieldt run 13.47s in the same race to set a new South African junior record. Especially since next month Bieldt will represent South Africa at the IAAF Junior World Championships in Poland.
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