Race is on for Tokyo berths

Despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic, South Africa looks set to send a strong track and field team to the Tokyo Olympics, with many of the country’s top athletes having already secured their places by achieving the required qualifying criteria.

However, three of SA’s four medalists in athletics at the 2016 Rio Games have not yet made the grade and they are locked in a race against time to book their spots in the final squad.

With four months remaining in the qualifying window, Wayde van Niekerk, Caster Semenya and Sunette Viljoen all have work to do to ensure they are at the delayed showpiece when it gets underway in July.

In total, 26 South African athletes (19 men and seven women) are currently on the list of qualifiers for the Games, along with the national men’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams.

But 13 of those individuals have not yet achieved the automatic qualifying standards and they will need to hope they don’t slip out of contention in the world rankings before the 29 June qualifying deadline.

While those fringe athletes will be sweating in the build-up to the Games, however, the majority of the pressure will be concentrated on the trio of Rio medalists who are not yet listed at all.

Of least concern among them, perhaps, is Van Niekerk, who returned to action last year after recovering from a serious knee injury and he should achieve the automatic 400m standard of 44.90 before the end of June.

The situation for Viljoen, looks more bleak and the 37-year-old javelin thrower has not reached the 64.00m qualifying standard.

Semenya faces a challenge of her own as she targets a new event, the 200m sprint, where she is well outside the mark in an effort to make the national team.