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While local athletics is still lapping up Wayde van Niekerk and Akani Simbine’s sub-10-second 100m performances, two teenage sprinters have been writing their own script in the fast lane.
TuksSport High School speedsters Gift Leotlela (17) and Clarence Munyai (18) are gradually establishing themselves.
This week’s SA Junior Championships in Germiston, Ekurhuleni, brought to the fore the country’s depth, with Thando Roto (20) – also Tuks – and Western Province’s Kayle Appel (17) showing they have something special.
Tuks’ High-Performance Centre sprint coach Hennie Kriel believes domestic athletics will soon witness no fewer than five sub-10-second times in one race. The veteran mentor guides Munyai, Leotlela and Roto among his group of sprinters at the Pretoria institution.
He, however, warned recently there was no need to be overzealous and fast-track his charges to compete at the Olympic Games in August, as many might expect. Instead, his camp is focusing on building up for the IAAF Under-20 Championships in Poland in July.
Leotlela snatched the national junior 100m title on Friday with a time of 10.21 seconds, which breached the A-qualifying standard of 10.23 for the global junior championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, while Roto clinched the Under-23 100m final in a time of 10.16 seconds – good enough for the Olympics, but disqualified by a strong tailwind reading.
“I feel motivated running these times so early in the season,” said Leotlela, who introduced himself last year when he sprinted to a Youth Olympic Games 100m gold medal in a breathtaking 10.20 seconds. “[The Olympics] is not my main focus, because I want to qualify for the world juniors [in Poland].”
If running a sub-10-second time was within reach, he said: “If it happens, it happens.”
The Free State-born sprinter will challenge his more senior rivals in the 100m at the SA Senior Championships in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, in two weeks.
Meanwhile, Munyai has already clocked a 200m Olympic qualifying time. His 20.39-second winning time during the first instalment of this year’s Varsity Athletics meeting breached the qualifying mark of 20.50 seconds. He is behind Simbine’s 20.29 seconds in the fastest times so far this year.
Appel, a 200m silver medallist at last year’s IAAF World Youth Championships, came third (10.43 seconds) in the junior 100m final.
Kriel once warned that the main challenge would be to give youngsters proper guidance and support to help them bridge the gap between excelling at junior level and being equally successful at senior level.
Upcoming international events include the Southern Region Youth Track and Field Championships in Lesotho from April 30 to May 1; the Southern Region Junior Track and Field Championships in Zambia from June 4 to 5; and the World Junior Championships from July 19 to 24.
