Hestrie leads the way
Brad Morgan
1 September 2003
The World Athletics Championships drew to a close on Sunday with South Africa’s Hestrie Cloete stealing the limelight in the women’s high jump. Defending the title she won in Edmonton in 2001, Cloete turned in the finest performance of her career so far to obliterate the challenge of the rest of the world’s top high jumpers.
Cloete was simply brilliant, clearing every height at her first attempt, all the way up to 2.06 metres, which was a new personal best, as well as a South African, African and Commonwealth record. It also left her six centimetres clear of her nearest challenger, which in the high jump means victory by a country mile. Her only failures came when she attempted a world record of 2.10 metres, but, says Cloete, that mark will come.
Her performance was the cherry on the top of a very strong showing by South Africa that, with a little more luck, could have been even better. However, it was the high jump that highlighted South
Africa’s efforts, with Jacques Freitag taking the men’s title with a clearance at 2.35 metres.
The wins by Cloete and Freitag were the first time since the very first World Athletics Championships in 1983 in Helsinki that the same country won both the men’s and women’s titles.
The exciting thing for South Africa is that both Cloete and Freitag have not yet reached their peaks and are probably capable of going quite a bit higher. Both athletes see the world records - of 2.09 metres in the women’s high jump and 2.45 metres in the men’s - as beatable.
South Africa’s next best performer after the two high jump aces was pole-vaulter Okkert Brits. He picked up silver as Italy’s Giuseppe Gibilisco shocked the field to win gold with a clearance at 5.90 metres. Brits managed 5.85.
Last year, Brits won the Commonwealth gold medal in tough conditions, and now this: his first medal in major world championship. It
showed that Brits has shaken off his tag as an athlete who can’t produce when the pressure is on. In fact, Brits, one of only seven men in history to have cleared six metres, should go into the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 as one of the favourites to capture the pole vault title.
Tough break
South Africa could very well have won another silver medal, but a misjudgement robbed Llewellyn Herbert of a medal of any colour. Competing in the 400 metres hurdles, he was lying second to Felix Sanchez with only one flight of hurdles remaining. Then, unfortunately for the 1997 World Championship silver medallist, he clipped the hurdle and fell, relegating him to last position when second was within his grasp.
There was further bad lack for South Africa in the 800 metres, in which Mbulaeni Mulaudzi finished third to take bronze. The Commonwealth champion got caught up on the inside and boxed in. There was some bumping as he tried to pull out and
chase the leaders in the final sprint, causing him to lose some momentum and time. With a strong effort down the straight, he finished only nine-hundredths of a second behind the winner, Djabir Saïd-Guerni. It could have been so different had the bumping not occurred.
There was another bronze for South Africa in the men’s marathon team event. With the top three finishers from each country counting, South Africa finished behind only Japan and Italy as Ian Syster took seventh, Hendrik Ramaala ninth and Gert Thys thirtieth.
In the final medal standings, South Africa tied with Kenya for seventh place, with only the United States, Russia, Ethiopia, Belarus, France and Sweden faring better.
Besides the medal winners, Frantz Kruger reached the final of the discus, where he finished sixth, Hezekiel Sepeng placed seventh in the 800 metres final, Shaun Bownes made it into the semi-finals of the 110 hurdles, Sherwin Vries reached the semi-finals of the 100 metres and 200
metres, Surita Febbraio made the finals of the 400 hurdles, and Heide Seyerling-Quinn qualified for the semi-finals of the 400 metres.
It was a very successful championships for South Africa’s 26-member team, and it raises the bar high - pun fully intended in light of the results - for the country’s efforts at the Olympic Games in Athens next year.
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