A silver night in Glasgow for SA trio
GLASGOW: On track, sand, canvas, plastic, grass and mat did South Africa win medals or advance into semi-finals and finals yesterday.
It was a magical night for the long jumpers, Rushwahl Samaai and Zarck Visser, who took bronze and silver respectively in the long jump, South Africa’s first athletics medals of the Games, but not the last. Wayde van Niekerk had Olympic 400m champion Kirani James keeping a close eye on him as he came around the bend hard and fast, pushing the man from Grenada close to win silver in 44.68 seconds. James broke a 16-year old Games record to keep the South African at bay with a 44.24sec.
“It’s definitely a blessing,” said Van Niekerk. “It’s a stepping stone to the future and gives me belief in myself. I wasn’t in the most positive place, but I pulled through and finished well. I said to myself I had to go as hard as I could from the start, and when it came to the last 100m, I gave it a big push.”
Sunette Viljoen, who won gold in the javelin in Melbourne and Delhi, won South Africa’s 31st medal of the Games with second place behind Australia’s Kim Mickle, who broke Viljoen’s Games record set four years ago. Her 65.96m was further than Viljoen’s 62.34m from Dehli, but Viljoen herself threw further with a 63.19m off her last attempt.
After their first jumps, Samaai (8.08m) and Visser (7.99m) had been in second and third behind the Olympic champion, Greg Rutherford of England, who managed an 8.12m. Visser launched himself 8.12 with his second to tie the lead, but Rutherford’s third jump of 8.20m decided the title. Andre Olivier looked comfortable in his 800m semi-final, leading from the start before easing off to qualify in third for tonight’s final.
Madi Mpho became the first South African woman to win a Commonwealth Games medal in wrestling yesterday. She took bronze in the 53kg freestyle, beating Scotland’s Shannon Hawke convincingly 5-0 in just 30 seconds.
Her reaction was as simple and as short as her win: “The medal. That’s all I thought about. The medal.”
Welterweight Tulani Mbenge guaranteed at least another medal would be added to Team South Africa’s growing collection not long after Mpho’s heroics, with a convincing win over Guyana’s Guy Bancroft. He has qualified for the semi-finals tomorrow, but there is no bronze medal fight-off, with bronze medals awarded to the losing semi- finalsts. He could yet win silver or gold.
Tall with a long reach, Mbenge had to deal with a furious start by Bancroft, who was a full head shorter. After a scrappy opening round, which two of the judges gave to Mbenge, another product of the long, proud line of Mdantsane boxers, Mbenge took control, forcing two standing eight counts in the second and third rounds with powerful shots to the head of Bancroft.
In the end, the judges gave the fight to Mbenge 30-27, 30-25 and 29-26.The South African women’s hockey team moved a step closer to a medal after they held on to beat India 3-2 at the Glasgow Green yesterday in frenetic game they controlled in the first half, but then struggled to control in the second. They will play Australia in the semi-finals at 1.15pm South African time tomorrow.
“We stepped back,” said captain Marsha Cox, “and we didn’t show enough conviction in attack. We needed to sustain and build on our lead, and we should have gone for that fourth and fifth goal once we were 3-1 up.
South Africa’s bowlers could add two more gold medals to the three they already have today. The para open triples team will play New Zealand after beating England 15-9 yesterday. The women’s triples team have a tough semifinal against Australia today, but should they make it through, they would be favourites against England or Wales, who are in the other semifinal.