Visser’s big leap back to fitness
Long jumper’s SA Champs victory augurs well for future
LONG-jumper Zarck Visser yesterday made a victorious return to competition after a ninemonth hiatus, but he still has much work to do. Visser celebrated as if he had won an Olympic medal after his second jump at the SA Open championships in Potchefstroom – running across the track to hug his coach, Emmarie Fouche, in the stands – but that was to mark the return of his confidence rather than a spectacular jump. In the end he won with a below-par effort of 7.75m that would not even have featured at last month’s national championships in Stellenbosch, where the winning leap was 8.38m.
“I’m a bit upset today,” said Visser, who underwent hip surgery early this year. “Even 8.20m wouldn’t have cut it – my hunger is so great.”
He had not competed since claiming the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last year.
“My first jump I was really scared – I leaned to the left too much to protect my right hip,” the University of Johannesburg student said. Then he got his confidence back. Visser, hampered with a pinch in his hip the whole of last season, was relieved to be free of pain, but he pointed out he had plenty of work to do before competing internationally in Birmingham on June 7.
“I’m not fast enough yet – I got cleared [to compete] only on Wednesday. The thing is to get back in the mindset, I have to get competition fit.”
Hurdler Wenda Nel was in brutal form in the 400m flat race, running alone out front, as she clocked an impressive 52.09sec – and she might have gone even quicker had she dipped on the line.
“That’s my personal best, I’m happy,” she beamed afterwards. “I went out as hard as I could and I felt it on the home straight.” But she is unlikely to improve on that today, given that the final is 35 minutes after her 400m hurdles race.
“My main focus is the 400m hurdles. I am really going to try and run a time faster than 55s. Whatever happens in the 400m will be okay with me. “If there is anything left in my legs I will certainly give it a good go again.
“The reason I’m competing in both events is to condition my body to run heats, semifinals and final at the world championships [in Beijing in August].”
Her performance stood out on a day where the standard at this meet – where athletes from several Southern African countries are competing – was lower than at the closed SA championships.
Elroy Gelant, a 5 000m specialist, went out hard in the 1 500m and at the end was forced to duel hard to beat Rantso Mokopane by six hundredths of a second, but his winning time of 3min 44.84sec was nothing to write home about.
Roscoe Engel won the men’s 100m in 10.24 ahead of his Western Province teammate Antonio Alkana, in 10.33.
Evergreen veteran Chris Harmse won the men’s hammer throw in 73m.
In other results, Mothimuk’hulu Hatasi of Lesotho won the men’s 10 000m in 29:58.18 and Mokulubete Makatsi of Lesotho won the women’s 5 000m in 17:25.37.