Piketh ‘very, very proud’
JOHANNESBURG: Lawn bowler Colleen Piketh clearly just loves competing at the Commonwealth Games.
She won the bronze medal in the singles at the Games two years ago in Glasgow, where she also picked up a gold for the pairs.
Yesterday she won bronze again in the singles, beating Canada’s Kelly McKerihen 21-17.
“I am very, very proud of the achievement and I am grateful to be able to be here to do,” Piketh said.
“I just felt I needed to keep on putting the pressure on and putting the ball close or in the area.”
South Africa has now won eight medals since Thursday including three gold, one silver and four bronzes.
Chad le Clos has been responsible for three of the medals winning the 50m and 100m butterfly gold medals before finishing second in the 200m freestyle final.
Piketh said she hoped to make it to the next Commonwealth Games in four years’ to finally upgrade her two singles bronzes to silver or gold.
“If am selected in four years’ time anything can happen and I’d like to do it,” she said.
South Africa is guaranteed another bowls medal after the quartet of Elma Davis, Esme Kruger, Nicolene Neal, and Johanna Strydom reached the women’s fours final after beating Malta 14-8.
They will compete for a gold or a silver medal on Monday.
South Africa’s track and field team got their campaign off to a relatively good start with sprinters Akani Simbine and Henricho Bruintjies, and shot-putter Orazio Cremona qualifying for finals.
Bruintjies scraped through finishing second in his semifinal posting a time of 10.26 seconds to finish second behind Enoch Adegoke of Nigeria.
South African 100m record-holder Simbine had to work hard during the first few phases in the race but looked comfortable towards the end.
Simbine crossed the line in second place without making an effort to dip clocking 10.12 with Kemar Heyman of the Cayman Islands winning the race in 10.10.
“This competition is very different with the heats and the semi-final on the same day so it’s unknown territory,” Simbine said.
“For me, it is just to get into the final and get the job done in the final.
“I’m just trying to get through, I’m trying not to drain my energy which a fast race does. If you run a fast race now I would be tired for tomorrow.”
Simbine, who has finished fifth in the final at Glasgow 2014, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the 2017 IAAF World Championships, said he was ready to finally win a medal at a major championship. “I’m ready, confident, I’m excited for tomorrow’s final. It’s just a bit late but I am really excited for it,” he said.
Cremona landed a qualifying throw of 19.24m even though he lost a bit of control of the ball.
“It wasn’t great throw at all, It was the worst throw of the season so far, the ball just kind of slipped out of my hand and I couldn’t get a good connection,” Cremona said.
“But it managed to get me through the qualifying rounds and I did it on my first throw which is all I wanted.”
Meanwhile, the Proteas Netball team suffered their second defeat of the Games bowing the knee 60-38 to hosts and world champions Australia.
The South African men’s hockey side went down 6-0 to New Zealand continuing their nightmarish run at the Games after losing to Australia 4-0 the day before.