South African Sports Wrap — 5^th August

5 August 2009 – This week in South African Sports – Guy Mortimer reports on what’s been hap­pen­ing this past week and what’s com­ing up!

ASA announce crack squad for Berlin
Athletics South Africa (ASA) on Tuesday announced a team of 25 men and six women for the IAAF World Championships in Berlin later this month. The team includes top ath­letes such as 800m run­ner Caster Semenya (pic­tured), LJ van Zyl, who has been sen­sa­tional in the 400m hurdles this year, 1500m com­pet­itor Johan Cronje, 3000m steeple­chaser Ruben Ramolefi, javelin thrower Sunette Viljoen, 110m hurd­ler Lehann Fourie and, of course, Beijing Olympic long jump sil­ver medal­list Khotso Mokoena. The team atten­ded a train­ing camp in Potsdam in July and have been sharpen­ing their skills at another venue in Neubrandenburg. All the ath­letes will be com­pet­ing today at a meet­ing in Spandau to determ­ine their fit­ness levels before the World Champs ...

Isaac sends Delvin pack­ing in Connecticut
South African fighter, Isaac ‘The Angel’ Hlatshwayo (pic­tured right), cap­tured the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) wel­ter­weight title when he out poin­ted Delvin Rodriguez of the Dominican Republic in Uncasville, Connecticut over the week­end. It was the second meet­ing between the pair, who fought to a con­tro­ver­sial draw at Emperor’s Palace in Kempton Park in November last year.

In an excit­ing battle where the action ebbed and flowed, Hlatshwayo pre­vailed by scores of 116–113, 116–112 and 113–115 to win a split decision over the always-dangerous Rodriguez whose record fell to 24–3-2 with 14 KO’s after this loss. With the win the 31-year-old Hlatshwayo, who hails from Soweto in Gauteng, improved his record to 29–1-1 with 10 wins via the short route and now puts him­self in line for bouts against some of the best fight­ers in the world, includ­ing the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey.

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg on Friday night, Mzonke ‘Rose of Khayelitsha’ Fana became the man­dat­ory chal­lenger for the IBF junior light­weight title when he demol­ished South African junior light­weight cham­pion Jasper Seroka. The 35-year-old Fana used his sharp left jab to pen­et­rate the game Seroka’s defences and then opened up with an arsenal of power punches for­cing American ref­eree Wayne Kelly to step and stop the fight at 1 min 39 secs of the sixth round.

The win helped Fana improve his record to 29–4 with 12 KO’s while Seroke dropped to 20–2 with 9 wins inside the dis­tance. More import­antly though, Fana earned the right to face the win­ner of the IBF junior light­weight title fight between South African Malcom Klassen (the defend­ing cham­pion) and American chal­lenger Robert Guerrero who clash in Houston, Texas on August 22.

In the main sup­port­ing bout, Kaizer Mabuza retained the SA junior wel­ter­weight title when he stopped Thulani Mkhwanazi in three one sided rounds. Mabuza knocked down Mkhwanazi four times prompt­ing ref­eree Thabo Spampool to call a halt to pro­ceed­ings at 2 min 27 secs of the round. The res­ult saw Mabuza improve his record to 21–6-3 with 13 KO’s while Mkhwanazi dropped to 10–7-1 with five wins via the short route.

The SA ban­tam­weight title was up for grabs at the Orient Theatre in East London on Sunday after­noon and Klaas Mboyane and Nkqubela put on a great show for the fans with the less fan­cied Mboyane pre­vail­ing by an 11^th round TKO in an action packed fight that could have gone either way. In upcom­ing local fight action, three World Boxing Foundation (WBF) title fights will be decided in Bloemfontein on Friday even­ing with South Africans William Gare, Mlungisi Dlamini and Bongani Mwelase all squar­ing off against inter­na­tional oppon­ents. Gare will take on Rigoberto Alvarez for the super mid­dle­weight title while Dlamini and Mwelase clash with Francisco Lorenzo and Attila Kovacs for the light­weight and junior mid­dle­weight titles respectively.

Van Jaarsveld to stay at Kent
Former Proteas player and cur­rent Nashua Titans bats­man Martin van Jaarsveld (pic­tured) has exten­ded his con­tract with English county side Kent until 2012. The 35-year-old middle order bats­men signed with Kent in 2005 and has enjoyed a happy and suc­cess­ful period with the county side, so much so that he has rejec­ted offers from other county sides. Van Jaarsveld is hav­ing another great sea­son for Kent and is their lead­ing run scorer in the four-day and Twenty20 com­pet­i­tions and second in lim­ited overs cricket. The right-handed bats­men played in nine tests and 11 one-day inter­na­tion­als for the Proteas.

It’s two in a row for Boks as Morné has a blinder
Springbok and Blue Bulls fly­half Morné Steyn, who had a solid game last week­end for the Boks against the tour­ing All Blacks, had a fant­astic one this Saturday when he scored all his teams points against the men from the ‘Land of the long white cloud’ in another bruis­ing Tri-Nations encounter between these two great rugby play­ing nations.

Steyn, who hardly put a foot wrong the entire match, scored an amaz­ing 31 points cour­tesy of eight pen­al­ties, a try and a con­ver­sion to secure a con­vin­cing 31–19 win for the Boks at the Absa Stadium in Durban. However, Steyn, ever the per­fec­tion­ist, was not fully sat­is­fied with his per­form­ance hav­ing expressed his dis­pleas­ure at miss­ing the last kick of the match (a rel­at­ively easy 40m pen­alty), which would have made his tally for the match an unbe­liev­able 34 points. Nevertheless, Steyn’s haul was more than good enough two set two new Tri-Nations records. The 25-year-old kick­ing sen­sa­tion bettered Andrew Mehrtens’ 10-year-old record of 29 points against Australia for the highest points total in a Tri-Nations match and Steyn’s haul was also the most num­ber of points scored by an indi­vidual against the All Blacks.

The Bok vic­tory was set-up by another dom­in­ant dis­play by their incred­ibly power­ful pack of for­wards with prop Beast Mtawarira and lock Bakkies Botha hav­ing out­stand­ing games for the men in ‘green and gold’. Scrumhalf Fourie du Preez and full­back Francois Steyn also had excel­lent games for the Boks with du Preez set­ting up Morné Steyn’s try after he snatched the ball from an All Black scrum and fed Steyn who sauntered through a huge gap to score what will prob­ably be one of his easi­est ties in a Springbok jersey.

The All Blacks, just as they did last week­end, never gave up try­ing and respon­ded with a 12^th minute try from lock Isaac Ross and three pen­al­ties and a con­ver­sion from fly­half Stephen Donald. Replacement fly­half Luke McAlister also kicked a pen­alty for the All Blacks. The Boks’ next Tri-Nations fix­ture is against Australia at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday and, after their impress­ive back-to-back wins against the All Blacks, it would take a brave man to bet against the Boks notch­ing up their third con­sec­ut­ive Tri-Nations win. Bok coach Peter De Villiers and cap­tain John Smit (pic­tured) must be happy men while the same can­not be said of their New Zealand counter parts Graham Henry and Richie McCaw, who must be sig­ni­fic­antly con­cerned fol­low­ing two straight losses to their tra­di­tional rivals.

Griquas con­tinue excel­lent form against Lions
High-flying GWK Griquas con­tain to con­found the experts in this year’s Absa Currie Cup com­pet­i­tion when they defeated a spir­ited Xerox Lions out­fit 23–19 at the Coca-Cola Park Stadium in Johannesburg on Friday even­ing. Griquas were full value for their win hav­ing led 20–7 at half time and although the Lions fought back gamely, they weren’t able to close the gap against their determ­ined opponents.

Griquas retained their lead at the top of the Currie Cup stand­ings with this win and must be con­sidered early sea­son favourite’s to lift the trophy this sea­son. Their next match is against Western Province (who thrashed the hap­less Platinum Leopards 48–7 at Newlands in another fourth round match) at GWK Park in Kimberley on Friday even­ing and this clash should prove to be a most inter­est­ing encounter. Province lost in Kimberley last year to a kick on the full-time siren and another win for Griquas should strike fear into the hearts of all and sun­dry in the competition.

The Lions travel to Wellington on Friday to face the Boland Cavaliers and must be con­sidered favour­ites to come away with a win after the Bolanders were trounced 50–18 by the mighty Blue Bulls in Pretoria. The men in blue square off against the win­less Free State Cheetahs at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein on Friday.

The Cheetahs slumped to a 21–12 defeat at the hands of the Sharks at a wet and icy cold Vodacom Park in another Friday even­ing encounter and must now be very alarmed after suf­fer­ing their fourth con­sec­ut­ive loss in this year’s com­pet­i­tion. The Sharks’ win was built around a solid dis­play by their for­wards and the boot of scrum­half Rory Kockott (pic­tured closer to the cam­era) who scored 18 points. The Sharks will face the Leopards at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Phokeng on Friday and a big win for the KwaZulu-Natalians must surely be on the cards.

Bucs edge Stars to retain Telkom Cup
Orlando Pirates are once again Telkom Charity Cup Winners after they beat Platinum Stars 4–2 on pen­al­ties after both teams were dead­locked at 1–1 after full-time in the final played in miser­able weather at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg on Saturday night. It was Stars who took the early lead when their newly signed Japanese mid­fielder Norikazu Murayama hit the back of the Bucs net after latch­ing onto an intel­li­gent through ball from Dillon Sheppard (pic­tured right). Rooi Mahumutsa lev­elled mat­ters in the 68^th minute when he slot­ted home a hotly dis­puted pen­alty that pushed the game into extra time and an inev­it­able pen­alty shoot-out. Bucs coach Ruud Krol was happy with his teams per­form­ance as he was field­ing a vir­tu­ally second string side against Stars.

Kaizer Chiefs defeated BidVest Wits 3–1 in an MTN 8 quarter-final clash yes­ter­day even­ing cour­tesy of goals from Nkosinathi Nhleko (3^rd minute), David Mathebula (71^st minute) and Knowledge Musona (90^th minute) with Mark Haskins pulling one back for Chiefs in the 42^nd minute. In the other quarter-final last night Amazulu advanced to the semi-finals at the expense of a game Supersport United with a 4–3 win on pen­al­ties after the match ended 1–1 after 90 min and 2–2 after 120 min. Orlando Pirates play Ajax Cape Town at Coca-Cola Park tonight in another quarter-final clash while Free State Stars face up to the chal­lenge of Golden Arrows at the Charles Mopeli Stadium in the final quarter-final.

In upcom­ing Absa Premiership action, Maritzburg United take on Supersport United in an inter­est­ing clash at Woodburn Stadium in Pietermaritzburg on Friday while week­end fix­tures are as follows:

Saturday
Moroka Swallows  vs  Golden Arrows — Dobsonville Stadium: 3pm
Jomo Cosmos vs Platinum Stars — Germiston Stadium: 3pm
Kaizer Chiefs vs Santos — Orlando Stadium: 8.15pm
Mamelodi Sundowns vs Black Aces — Super Stadium: 8.15pm

Sunday
AmaZulu vs Bidvest Wits — Chatsworth Stadium: 3pm
Bloem Celtic vs Free State Stars — Seisa Ramabodu  Stadium: 3pm
Ajax Cape Town vs Orlando Pirates — Newlands Stadium: 3pm

Gerhard does SA proud in Rome
Gerhard Zandberg (pic­tured) pro­duced a scin­til­lat­ing per­form­ance in the 50m back­stroke finals at the 13^th Fina World Swimming Championships in Rome on Sunday when he cap­tured a bronze medal in an excel­lent time of 23.34 sec.  The 26-year-old South African improved his African record by 1.24 sec and helped his team to a medal haul of four (three bronze and one gold) in the championships.

The South African fin­ished in 14^th pos­i­tion over­all on the medals table and broke an aston­ish­ing 21 African records along the way.

Zandberg will be return­ing to South Africa for the course cham­pi­on­ships at the Jolliffe Pool in Pietermaritzburg on Friday.

De Jager once again named Coach of the Year
South Africa’s non-playing Davis Cup Captain John-Laffnie de Jager (pic­tured) was once again named the World TeamTennis (WTT) Coach of the Year. This is the second time De Jager has earned Coach of the Year hon­ours as he won the award in 2007, his first sea­son as coach of the Springfield Lasers who were runners-up in the Advanta World TeamTennis finals played on Sunday. The Lasers five-member team con­sists of De Jager as coach, South African Davis Cup cam­paigner Raven Klaasen, ex South African player Liezel Huber, Martin Damm of the Czech Republic and American Vania King.

De Jager’s imme­di­ate focus will be on the vital upcom­ing Davis Cup tie against India at the Ellis Park Arena from 18 to 20 September. A South African vic­tory will guar­an­tee the country’s return to the elite Davis Cup in over a dec­ade. The South African Tennis Association and De Jager will announce the pre­lim­in­ary squad before the final team is made public.

Left Hook or Captain Hook?
While search­ing the Net for a pho­to­graph of Isaac Hlatshwayo (see Isaac sends Delvin pack­ing in Connecticut story) I stumbled across this pecu­liar pho­to­graph of legendary mul­tiple world box­ing cham­pion Roy Jones Junior (pic­tured left) dressed up in a pir­ate cos­tume (of all things) at a press con­fer­ence to pro­mote his upcom­ing bout against former IBF super-middleweight cham­pion Jeff ‘Left Hook’ Lacy. I’m not quite sure if Mr Jones is under­go­ing some sort of a mid-life crisis that he feels the need to dress up as a Captain Jack Sparrow (or is it Captain Hook?) to help pro­mote his fights these days. Weird, but I guess that’s the crazy and often bizarre world of box­ing for you. The 40-year-old Jones will do battle with 32-year-old fel­low American Lacy for the WBO NABO light-heavyweight title at the Gulf Coast Arena, Biloxi, Mississippi, United States on Saturday, 15 August.

Photo Credits:
ASA announce crack squad for Berlin — Photo: Caster Semenya — Source: www.iaaf.org
Isaac sends Delvin pack­ing in Connecticut — Photo: Isaac Hlatshwayo — Source: www.weblogs.newsday.com
Van Jaarsveld to stay at Kent — Photo: Martin van Jaarsveld — Source: www. dailymail.co.uk
It’s two in a row for Boks as Morné has a blinder — Photo: John Smit — Source: www.sporting-heroes.net
Griquas con­tinue excel­lent form against Lions — Photo: Rory Kockott — Source: www.abc.net.au
Bucs edge Stars to retain Telkom Cup — Dillon Sheppard — Source: www.flickr.com
Gerhard does SA proud in Rome — Photo: Gerhard Zandberg — Source: www.daylife.com
De Jager once again named Coach of the Year — Photo: John-Laffnie de Jager — Source: www.tennisserver.com
Left Hook or Captain Hook? — Photo: Roy Jones Junior — Source: www.braggingrightscorner.com