Khotso bags SA’s 13th gold medal
| Sascoc president to revise prediction of 16 gongs for 2016 Rio Games
KHOTSO Mokoena conjured up a golden sunset for Team South Africa in a soggy Glasgow yesterday as he sailed to victory in the triple jump.
He registered only two legal jumps, a season’s best 17.20m and then 16.99m, and even the shorter one would have been good enough for SA’s 13th — and most probably final — gold here.
Mokoena was SA’s only medallist at the 2008 Olympics, taking silver in the long jump, and now he nudged SA to its highest tally of golds at a Commonwealth Games in the postisolation era.
The previous best was 12, in 2006 and again in 2010.
While he celebrated, three times South Africans finished fourth on the penultimate day — and twice there were painful losses to the Kiwis.
The relay team was chuffed after their 38.35sec SA record behind Jamaica, England and Trinidad and Tobago in the 4x100m, where Usain Bolt picked up his first Games medal.
The sprint superstar stole the show, jiving and clapping as the
I was running out wide too much. I think I wasted a lot of time in the first two laps
lively Hampden Park crowd sang “500 Miles” before the race, and carried on performing afterwards.
But in the 1 500m, Johan Cronje was pushed off the podium by five-hundredths of a second, and Marsha Cox’s hockey women succumbed 2-5 in the bronze medal play-off.
Less than half-a-second separated the top four in the men’s 1 500m, with Kenya taking the top two places — James Kiplagat Magut won in 3:39.31 and Ronald Kwemoi was second in 3:39.53.
Cronje, the world championship bronze medallist, was edged out by Kiwi Nick Willis, the 2008 Olympic silver medallist who clocked 3min 39.60sec.
It came down to the final sprint, and the SA middle-distance star reckoned he wasted too much energy fighting his way from the back of the field on contention in the final lap.
“I was running out wide too much,” he said. “I think I wasted a lot of time in the first two laps fighting for a position. I just should have stayed calm,” said the gutted Cronje, sporting bloody spike marks on his legs from the run.
He said he wasn’t aware of Willis coming up on his inside. “If I had I would have dived. Not dipped — dived. Like into a swimming pool.”
Cronje said he wanted any position except fourth.
“I want to shoot myself. It’s my worst nightmare. I was talking to my wife and coach earlier and I said I don’t stress about much except finishing fourth — and that’s what happened.”
Even Willis felt sorry for Cronje, telling him after the race: “Sorry mate, you deserved that far more than I did.”
The hockey women had drawn level at 2-2 in the second half before New Zealand netted three times in 13 minutes.
“It’s extremely disappointing,” said Cox. “I don’t think the scoreline reflected the game … Crucial errors cost us.”
The men’s hockey team won their play-off for fifth spot, thrashing Canada 7-3.
Meanwhile, Sascoc president Gideon Sam warned he would cut funding to federations that had failed here.
in Glasgow RUSWAHL Samaai’s bronze medal in the long jump at the Commonwealth Games this week may have come as a surprise for many.
But not for the Paarl Gym old boy, who loved the sport so much he walked 10km every day to train at the Dal Josafat track.
He and his siblings grew up poor in the Boland town, but they made do on the meagre earnings of their single mother, a machine operator at a food producer.
“My mom is my role mother,” Samaai said yesterday. “She does everything for me. Even when there’s no money, she made a plan.”
Samaai, 22, hasn’t stopped beaming since ending third behind friend and countryman Zarck Visser — they both train with different coaches at the University of Johannesburg — and Olympic champion Greg Rutherford.
But the smile will soon fade as he starts preparing for next year’s world championships and then the 2016 Olympics.
“I have to go back and work hard,” he said. “I don’t just want to go to Rio. I want to win a medal.”
That is the ultimate goal of Team SA.
Of the 38 Commonwealth Games medals won by yesterday morning, 24 were in Olympic events.
But only seven translate into Olympic silverware, which would be SA’s best haul since returning from international isolation in 1992.
SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) president Gideon Sam conceded yesterday that he would revise his initial prediction of 16 for 2016 to “10 or 12”.
That would at least match SA’s all-time best Olympic performance of 10 medals.
There is no exact science when it comes to determining Olympic success based on Commonwealth performances.
For example, SA took 38 medals at Melbourne, but managed only a solitary silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
At Delhi 2010 SA took home a lowly 33 Commonwealth medals, but enjoyed their best Olympic campaign of the post-isolation era at London 2012 with six medals, three of them gold.
The count of seven silverware is based on how SA’s times and distances here would have fared at London 2012:
Sevens rugby will make its Olympic debut only in 2016, so there’s no 2012 reference, but as the champions of Glasgow 2014, the Blitzboks are counted as a medal hope;
Young sprint sensation Wayde van Niekerk is on the list not because his 400m time here would have won a medal at London 2012 (he wasn’t far off) but because he beat the Olympic bronze medallist, Lalonde Gordon;
Visser’s silver effort in the long jump would have shared Olympic bronze;
Richard Murray’s third place in the men’s triathlon puts him in the mix because he was beaten only by the almost unbeatable Brownlee brothers here;
Chad Le Clos’s time in the 100m butterfly here would have shared gold with Michael Phelps in London.
His 200m effort would have been good enough for sixth place two years ago, but considering he won that race then, and is capable of going faster, that medal is counted too; and
Cameron van der Burgh went slower than his world record in the 100m breaststroke, but his time would still have taken second place two years ago.
Naturally, none of these are guaranteed medals in Rio.
Van der Burgh admitted he had been struggling to find his mojo coming into Glasgow, and if he hasn’t rediscovered it long before 2016, that could be a problem.
The statistics show that few SA Olympic medallists return for more silverware — the country boasts 76 gongs, but only six of those were claimed by past podium-achievers.
Rowing and canoeing produced medals in London, but were not part of the Glasgow showpiece; they will be judged on their performances at their world championships this month.
SA won seven medals in three combat sports here — four in judo, two in wrestling and one in boxing — but none are likely to make it in Rio.
Judoka Zack Piontek won the only Glasgow gold in the 90kg division, but by his own admission he needs much more international competition in the next two years to get into Olympic contention.
The only certainty about the Commonwealth Games is that it’s a breeding ground for future Olympic medallists, for hungry athletes.
Like Samaai, hopefully.