The South African men's 4x100m-relay team will have to dip under 38 seconds if it wants to have any chance of medalling during the weekend's World Relay Championships in Yokohama. 

That is the opinion of Emile Erasmus (Tuks) who was part of the South African relay-team that not only won a silver medal during last year's Gold Coast Commonwealth Games but also set a new South African clocking 38.24s. It turned out to be one of the nine fastest 4x100m-relay times during last year.

Erasmus is one of two Tuks-athletes who will compete in the 4x100m-relay. The other being Akani Simbine. 

"Getting to win a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games is a definite career highlight for me," said Erasmus who is on the verge of becoming only the sixth South African sprinter to dip under ten seconds in the 100m. He set a personal best of 10.01s last year. 

The Tuks-athlete is confident that if they are on song that they could come close to setting a new South African record, however, he immediately added that he does not think a time of 38 something seconds is going to cut it at the World Relay Championships. 

"We need to dip under 38 seconds. It is going to be a tall order, but it is certainly not an unrealistic goal." 

Erasmus confidence sprouts partly from the training they have been doing over the last few days. 

"In the past, we never got to train as relay-team properly. At most, we would have practised a few changeovers the day before the race. But under the guidance of Paul Gorries, we got experiment quite a bit to see what works and what not."

As things stand at the moment, Erasmus will start with Simon Magakwe (SA 100m champion) running the second leg and Simbine (SA 200m champion) sprinting for the line. 

It still has got to be decided who is going run the third leg of the relay. It could be Anaso Jobodwana who was also part of last year's record-breaking team or Chederick van Wyk. Thando Roto is, for now, the substitute should anything go wrong.

South Africa’s 4x200m-relay team could be real medal contenders with the likes of Simbine, Jobodwana and Luxolo Adams running.

South Africa's women's 100m champion, Tebogo Mamatu (Tuks) is confident that they could come close to improving on the national record of 43.25s set in 2000. 

"It is a pity that we can't field a full-strength team for the World Relays. It would have helped if Carina Horn and Rikenette Steenkamp were in the team, but they are not. It certainly won't help to wonder what could have happened we need to make it work with what we have."

In all possibility, Mamatu will start with Tamzin Thomas running the second leg, Justine Palframan the third and Rose Xeyi sprinting for the line. 

The other Tuks-athletes who might be competing from Saturday at the World Relay Championships are Senesispo Dambile and Simbine (4x200m-relay); Thapelo Pora, Ashley Hlungwani and Jon Seeliger (all 4x400m relay); Pora and Wenda Nel (4x400m mixed relay).