Team SA on track for six of the best
But questions over Wayde van Niekerk and Chad le Clos
● Even with doubts over Wayde van Niekerk’s fitness and Caster Semenya being hounded out of the women’s 800m, SA is on track for a decent showing at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Sunday Times can count at least 11 solid podium contenders for the Games and that should translate into five medals, based on SA’s conversion rate of just over two prospects per podium spot at the past few Games.
The number of medal hopes could actually be as high as 14, which could push Team SA close to seven territory in Japan.
It’s a given that SA won’t match its Rio 2016 bounty of 10 gongs, which equalled the nation’s best efforts from 1920 and 1952. Six is the second-highest haul, achieved at London 2012, Athens 2004 and Stockholm 1912.
SA’s average at the seven Games since readmission at Barcelona 1992 is five medals — a Japanese six-pack would be a triumph, especially after the past tough 17 months.
Funding to support local competitors all but dried up, and the hardest stages of lockdown left athletes unable to train properly.
Covid-19 protocols forced Van Niekerk to delay his move to his new training base in the US by a few months, and then he pulled up in his first race there last weekend after feeling a tightness in his right hip.
The reigning 400m champion from Rio 2016 returned to training on Thursday, his agent Peet van Zyl said. “We’re going to take it easy now and see how the training goes for the rest of this week and next week and then hopefully maybe we can have a race for him there in America next weekend.
“But we don’t know yet, we’re going to take it day by day and see how he reacts to the training and if he can go at full tilt again, and then if he’s fine we’ll make a call on a meet for him.”
Van Niekerk, owner of the 43.03sec world record, needs to run 44.90 to book his spot in Tokyo before the qualifying window ends on June 29, though he hasn’t been at that level since before injuring his right knee in 2017.
While he has looked in good shape in a few 200m races this season, the question is: does Van Niekerk have the fitness to go three rounds at the Games and blast out at least a low-44 in the final?
Semenya, SA’s other Olympic champion from Rio, is still trying to get to Japan in the women’s 5,000m, having switched from the 800m she once dominated to avoid a World Athletics’ rule that would require her to take medication to lower her naturally occurring high levels of testosterone.
Even if she does qualify she won’t be fighting for silverware.
There are question marks over longjumper Ruswahl Samaai, the 2017 world championship bronze medallist, and swimming star Chad le Clos, SA’s most decorated Olympian with four medals.
Samaai hasn’t been beyond 8.20m since 2019 and leaps shorter than that have made the Olympic podium only once since 1984.
Le Clos’s best world ranking is 19th, in the 200m butterfly, but he and Samaai have shown before they can lift their game when it matters.
The Blitz Boks have been hibernating since the pandemic began, along with the rest of the rugby sevens world, but they must still be counted as medal hopes.
Elsewhere SA’s hopes are on song, with good performances delivered in the past six months from Tatjana Schoenmaker in the 200m and 100m breaststroke, the men’s four rowers, sprinter Akani Simbine and the men’s 4x100m relay, triathlete Henri Schoeman, surfer Jordy Smith, ace women’s cyclist Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and mountainbiker Alan Hatherly.
Louis Oosthuizen’s tie for second place at the PGA Championship last weekend made golf a proper contender, as long as he and the country’s No 2 golfer choose to compete in Tokyo.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout, ranked 43 in the world, and 10 other South Africans are still fighting for the second spot.
And there may be a few dark horses, like the men’s road cycling team, women’s golf or triathlete Richard Murray, but let’s not get carried away. Between now and the start of the Games on 24 July the top hopes must stay in shape and avoid injury and illness.
The rowers head back to Katse Dam in Lesotho this week where they will create a heat chamber to help acclimatise to Tokyo’s heat and humidity.
Schoenmaker’s coach, Rocco Meiring, is hoping the Highveld winter doesn’t disrupt their preparations at Tuks’s outdoor pool.
He plans to increase the quality of the morning sessions to mimic the evening heats morning finals format they will face in Tokyo.
The last time the Olympics saw this format in swimming, at Beijing 2008 to cater for US TV audiences, SA swimmers didn’t win a medal. Team SA landed just one medal in all back then, but the class of 2021 looks like it’s carrying a far heavier punch.
We’re going to take it easy now and see how the training goes Peet van Zyl Coach of world record holder Wayde van Niekerk