Carina Horn proved last week with her winning time of 11.16s in the 100 metres at the Paavo Nurmi Meeting in Finland that the hunt for the South African record is still on.

The temperature was 15 degrees with intermittent rain.

Evette de Klerk’s South African 100m record (11.06s set on 20 April 1990), is one of the oldest records on the South African athletics record book. Geraldine Pillay is the only athlete who came close to improving it when she ran 11.07s in Durban in 2005.

During the past few seasons South Africa’s female sprinters have run ‘pedestrian’ times compared to what was happening in international athletics. However, Horn started what will hopefully be the revival of South African women’s sprinting last year when she ran times of 11.21s and 11.17s at European meetings. This means that she is currently jointly the third fastest ever local sprinter. Marcel Winkler also ran a time of 11.16s in 1990.

Horn said it was quite difficult to warm up properly before her races because of the severe cold.

“I just decided that I was not going to allow the cold to prevent me from staying focused on what I had set out to do, which was to win. I was quite relieved when I crossed the line and looked back to see a time of 11.17s on the stopwatch. My time was rounded off to 11.16s which is a personal best for me” the friendly Tuks athlete told the media afterwards.

Horn said she was happy with her start, but towards the end of the race her legs felt ‘dead’ because of the cold. “Hopefully it will be warmer the next time I race” she concluded.

However, she was not the only South African to excel. By winning the 100 metres in 10.09 seconds, Henrico Bruintjies ensured that the South Africans made a clean sweep in the short sprints. He improved on the meeting record set in 1997 by the Namibian sprint legend, Frankie Fredericks.

After the race a confident Bruintjies said to his coach, Hennie Kriel (Tuks/HPC), that he could have broken 10 seconds if the weather played along.

Source: http://rekordcenturion.co.za/50530/horn-is-getting-closer-to-de-klerks-sprint-record/