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On any other day, South Africa would have had Caster Semenya and Wayde van Niekerk in the teams that Athletics SA (ASA) is dispatching to the IAAF World Relays championships, which start in Yokohama in Japan on Saturday.
ASA excellence manager Hezekiél Sepeng said the two were consulted in the initial stages, but they indicated their unavailability for various reasons.
“For Caster, it had nothing to do with her matter with the IAAF, while Wayde is still in the process of rehabilitation after a knee operation,” Sepeng told City Press this week.
Read: Caster is not done with the IAAF — Semenya's lawyers
“Caster was going to be considered especially for the mixed relay. She said she was not at the phase where she needed to be, but, going to the world champs [in Doha, Qatar, later this year], ‘we can talk’.”
Semenya anchored her provincial 4 x 400m relay team, Athletics Gauteng North, to victory at the SA Senior Championships in Germiston last weekend.
Sepeng said Semenya, the newly crowned South African 5 000m and 1 500m champion, and Van Niekerk “give a sense of the depth South Africa have in the relays, in addition to the strong team we have already entered for Japan”.
Sprinter Akani Simbine said he was looking forward to chasing gold in Yokohama with a team that has a mixture of the experienced campaigners, such as Anaso Jobodwana, and the young brigade of the newcomers, including Gardeo Isaacs and Chederick van Wyk.
The women’s teams have the experience of athletes such as South African 100m record holder Carina Horn and Zenéy van der Walt.
“We have the guys who are capable of getting the baton across and winning a gold medal,” said Simbine.
The Commonwealth Games 100m champion said that winning his maiden South African 200m title last weekend also gave him a lift ahead of the 4x100m and 4x200m events in Japan.
“I am excited for myself and for the South African group of sprinters as we are all looking forward to the future,” he said.
At stake at the global relay competition are top eight spots to gain automatic qualification into the IAAF World Championships in Doha in September.
Meanwhile, Sepeng cited lack of cooperation from some athletes and coaches as the reason the country was not represented at the previous competitions, which were all staged in the Bahamas.
“We started a long time ago with the relays, but there was little cooperation in the past. We are satisfied with the five teams that are going to represent us in Japan,” he said, adding that the Yokohama-bound team was done with competition and would leave on Wednesday.
“The team was not selected based on the South African Championships. The final selection of athletes was made at the two grand prix series – in Bloemfontein on April 13 and Potchefstroom on April 17 – because the deadline to submit the names was April 22.”
South Africa last won a relay medal in a major competition at last year’s Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast in Australia, when a quartet anchored by Simbine clocked 38.24 seconds for a silver.
The feat also confirmed South Africa’s place at the Yokohama relays.
However, the baton change-overs is what will be key for Team SA in their bid for honours in the city that will host the Olympic Games next year.
