Rising stars Morake, Zazini lead SA to 141 medal haul
Pair shine in double gold wins
SA rising stars Sokwakhana Zazini and Gontse Morake stood out among the highlights of the CAA Southern Region U20 Youth and U18 Junior Championships at the weekend at the Boksburg Athletics Stadium.
Zazini (400m and 400m hurdles) and Morake (400m hurdles and triple jump) each produced double gold performances at the regional event, where Team South Africa finished with 141 medals, comprising 75 gold, 57 silver and nine bronze.
Morake, 17, clinched the girls 400m hurdles title in 59.77 seconds before breaking her own SA age-group record with a 13.10m effort in the triple jump, while Zazini, also 17, took his hurdles final in another sub-50 second effort of 49.99.
Reigning world youth hurdles champion Zazini is preparing for the IAAF World Junior Championships pencilled in for Finland in July.
Shot putter Kyle Blignaut also continued to build on his spectacular form this season when he bettered his own SA U20 junior record with a 21.65m heave.
He is also the country’s medal hopeful at the global U20 championships.
Also at the two-day regional championships at the weekend, the national junior men’s 4x100m relay team clocked 39.33 seconds to win gold, breaking the South African record by 0.13.
The boys’ squad covered their lap in 40.76 to chop 0.24 off the previous mark, while the 4x400m quartet finished in 3:13.72, clipping 0.42 off the previous standard.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe, which took in a haul of 19 medals in total, finished second on the medal table of the 11-nation championships, while other nations did not get more than one gold each.