TuksAthletics hurdler, LJ van Zyl (Tuks/hpc) maintained his unbeaten streak when he won the 400-hurdles in 49.74s on the 22 March 2016 at the ASA Night Series event in Cape Town.

It was the 139^th time that he clocked a time faster than 50 seconds for the event.

The Tuks/hpc hurdlers dominated the 400-hurdles races. Lindsay Hanekom was second in the men’s race with a personal best time of 49.81s and Gezelle Magerman won the women’s race in 58.38s, the second-best time in her career.

Van Zyl was satisfied with the way his race played out.

“I had a good fast start and my technique felt good. What excites me is that I felt stronger than I did when I raced at the Gauteng North Championships. It proves that my training is on track. I would have liked to have run a time faster than the Olympic qualifying A-standard of 49.40s, but then again my main goal was just to win. I am confident that it will be just a matter of time before I am able to run an Olympic qualifying time.”

Hanekom is definitely an athlete to watch this season. So far this season he has only competed twice in the 400-hurdles and on both occasions he ran personal best times. This past Saturday he ran 49.90s at a league meeting which took place in Pilditch.

It is interesting to note that Hanekom has managed to improve his time for the 400-hurdles by more than 10 seconds over the past four years. In his first ever 400-hurdles race he was timed at 63 seconds. Last year his personal best time was 50.0s, since then his time has improved by another 0.19s.

Hanekom’s coach, Nico van Heerden is confident that Hanekom will be able to qualify for the Olympic Games in Rio.

“Lindsay still has some injury problems but we work around it. The important thing is that we are able to do quality work during his training sessions.  I am impressed by Lindsay’s hunger to succeed,” said Van Heerden.

Hanekom was not satisfied with his performance last night.

“The good news is that my hamstring felt fine during the race, but I was disappointed with the way I executed my race.  For instance, my hurdle clearance was not what it should be.  But I guess I cannot complain seeing that I ran one of my best times,” said the Tuks/hpc athlete.

Le Roux Hamman (Tuks) was third in the 400-hurdles race in a time of 50.10s.

For Magerman, it was just very good to race in front of her home crowd.

The Tuks athletes made a clean sweep in the men’s 100 metres.  Henricho Bruintjies won in 10.26s, Emil Erasmus was second in 10.31m and Gift Leotlela (Grade 12-learner TuksSport High School) third in 10.34s.

Hennie Kriel, Leotlela’s coach, said he was impressed because Leotlela was not intimidated by the senior and more experienced athletes.

“Even though Gift had to race in lane seven, which is never easy, he still had no qualms about taking on the senior athletes. He showed a lot of guts with the way he fought to get a top-three finish.”

Photo credit: Reg Caldecott