Bolt anchors Jamaica win as SA crash

USAIN Bolt powered Jamaica to another 4x100m relay victory at the Bird’s Nest stadium last night for the 11th world championship gold of his career.

It was one of four events last night that might have featured South Africans, but didn’t.

There was no Caster Semenya in the women’s 800m, nor Victor Hogan in the men’s discus, nor Willem Coertzen in the decathlon, in which Ashton Easton of the US notched up 9 045 points for the first world record of the championships.

But the hardest blow was suffered by the sprint team — touted as realistic medal contenders — as they crashed out at the first handover of the heats earlier yesterday. The foursome featured 200m bronze medallist Anaso Jobodwana, 100m semifinalists and sub-10-second runners Akani Simbine and Henricho Bruintjies, and 110m hurdler Antonio Alkana.

Bruintjies struggled to reach Jobodwana, and then he stumbled, falling forward onto the track. Game over.

“I can’t say it was him who went too early,” said Bruintjies, the first runner when SA ran to a 38.35sec national record at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. “I’ll just put the blame on myself. We were just unprepared.”

Jobodwana took the blame, saying he had been unable to practise enough after his medalwinning feat on Thursday.

It’s now up to the administrators to get this team racing abroad if they are to have any chance of qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“When the whole season started, we were very excited because we had guys that were running really fast,” said Jobodwana. “And then nothing happened. We didn’t have any relay camps, we didn’t go to World Relays [in Bahamas].”

Jamaica won in 37.36, ahead of China (38.01) and Canada (38.13). The US ended second, but were disqualified, and Great Britain failed to finish.