This Week in South African Sports

South Africa pin­ning hopes on Caster Semenya in Berlin
The 12^th IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin are well under way and there have been some phe­nom­enal per­form­ances on dis­play with Jamaican sprint­ing sen­sa­tion Usain Bolt’s unbe­liev­able 9.58 secs in the 100m final, undoubtedly the pick of the bunch. However, the South African con­tin­gent have struggled to achieve their poten­tial in a fiercely com­pet­it­ive envir­on­ment, with medal hopes LJ van Zyl, Sunnette Viljoen and Ruben Ramolefi fail­ing to pro­duce the goods when it coun­ted most.

Van Zyl was blown away by the com­pet­i­tion in the first of Sunday night’s 400m hurdles semi-finals, clock­ing an ordin­ary 48.80 secs for sixth pos­i­tion. The bit­terly dis­ap­poin­ted Van Zyl, his face express­ing an intense state of anguish, left the track without offer­ing any com­ments to the media, and one hopes that the tal­en­ted young­ster will not allow this set­back to des­troy his con­fid­ence as he still has a prom­ising career ahead of him.

Javelin thrower Viljoen went into Berlin ranked fifth in the world, but her form deser­ted her as she could only muster a best throw of 56.83m which was sig­ni­fic­antly short of the even­tual 59.46m that closed the top 12 pos­i­tions for the final, won by Steffi Nerius of Germany (67.30m). Ramolefi did man­age to qual­ify for the 3 000m steeple­chase final, but was devoured by the qual­ity field to fin­ish 13^th in a very dis­ap­point­ing 8 min, 32.54 secs. Ezekial Kemboi of Kenja won the race in a bril­liant 8 min, 0.43 secs to cap­ture a gold medal for his country.

With South African hopes for a medal dwind­ling fast, it will likely be left to Caster Semenya (pic­tured with No 345) to bring home some sil­ver­ware for her coun­try. The power­ful 18-year-old will be up against a top class field in tonight’s 800m final (9.35pm on SuperSport1), but should have enough left in the tank to secure at least a bronze medal.

Bulls squeak past Griquas while Sharks devour Lions
Round six of the 2009 Absa Currie Cup saw some excit­ing action with the pick of the weekend’s games undoubtedly the Blue Bulls’ nar­row 25–24 win over Griquas in Kimberley on Saturday. High fly­ing Griquas, who hadn’t put a foot wrong the entire sea­son thus far win­ning all five of their matches, came up against a motiv­ated Bulls out­fit des­per­ate to rebound from their sur­pris­ing defeat to the Cheetahs the pre­vi­ous weekend.

Replacement loose for­ward Pedrie Wannenburg (pic­tured) scored the win­ning try for the vis­it­ors when he barged his way over the line to dot down under the posts with less than two minutes remain­ing. Flyhalf Burton Francis then calmly slot­ted the extra two points to seal Griquas’ fate. However, des­pite suf­fer­ing their first defeat this year, Griquas still remain on top of the Currie Cup stand­ings with 24 points – two points clear of the second placed Sharks who defeated the Lions 30–19 in Johannesburg.

The Sharks made full use of their chances in the first half and went into the break 17–0 to the good des­pite the Lions get­ting the bet­ter of the for­ward exchanges. Sharks fly­half Monty Dumond banged over two pen­al­ties to stretch the vis­it­ors’ lead to 23–0 and with just 10 minutes remain­ing in the game the Lions were star­ing a white­wash in the face.

However, the hosts took advant­age of their opponent’s com­pla­cency to run in three quick tries by Cobus Grobbelaar, Derek Minnie and Ruan Boshoff to add some respect­ab­il­ity to the sco­reline. The Sharks deserved their win, but con­ced­ing 19 points in the last 10 minutes was unne­ces­sary and the KwaZulu-Natalians will have to tighten up their game some­what if they hope to keep the Currie Cup trophy in Durban this year. In other games Western Province eas­ily defeated the Boland Cavaliers 38–7 in Wellington while the Cheetahs crushed the hap­less Leopards 71–7 in Potchefstroom.

Round seven action this Friday sees the Bulls at home to the Leopards (don’t be sur­prised if the men in blue hit triple fig­ures here) while Saturday’s matches pit the Lions against Western Province at Newlands, the Sharks against Griquas in Durban and the Cheetahs against the Cavaliers in Bloemfontein. The pick of these games is likely to be the Durban encounter, with little to choose between the defend­ing cham­pi­ons and the men from the Griquas.

Meanwhile, Australian fly­half Matt Giteau has been cleared of any wrong­do­ing by the International Rugby Board (IRB) after his dubi­ous chal­lenge on Springbok scrum­half Fourie du Preez in the pre­vi­ous weekend’s Tri-Nations encounter at Newlands. Giteau smashed Du Preez to the ground with a reck­less fore­man chal­lenge that left the Bok No 9 dazed and dis­or­i­ent­ated for a num­ber of minutes dur­ing the match, and was sin-binned for his efforts.

However, Giteau was cleared of any sig­ni­fic­ant wrong­do­ing and escaped a ban, which many thought he deserved since his chal­lenge on Du Preez seemed to smack of pre­med­it­a­tion. The Boks once again face the Wallabies on August 29 and ten­sions are likely to be run­ning high between both teams fol­low­ing the some­what ill tempered Newlands encounter, which saw the Australians con­ced­ing three yel­low cards.

Ajax and Arrows win open­ing MTN8 semis
Ajax Cape Town and Golden Arrows drew first blood in the first leg of the MTN8 semi-finals when they defeated Kaizer Chiefs and AmaZulu respect­ively over the week­end. Ajax tri­umphed over their more illus­tri­ous oppon­ents 1–0 cour­tesy of a 62^nd minute pen­alty strike by Dipsy Selolwane (pic­tured) at the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday. The match was a tense struggle between two well-matched teams, but Ajax made bet­ter use of their oppor­tun­it­ies to pre­vail in a very close encounter, which could have gone either way. The two teams meet in the second leg at the Orlando Stadium on Sunday after­noon. Kickoff is at 3pm.

In the other first leg semi-final played on Sunday, Arrows proved too much for AmaZulu to handle with Abafana Bes’thende tri­umph­ing 2–1 cour­tesy of a brace of goals by striker, and newly capped Bafana Bafana player, Richard Henyekane. Midfielder Litha Ngxabi pulled one back for the home side in the 90^th minute, but by then it was far too late for Amazulu to pull this one out of the fire. The return clash will again be played at the Chatsworth Stadium in Durban on Saturday even­ing at 8.15pm.

The Absa Premier Soccer League (PSL) sea­son con­tin­ues this week with a host of teams doing battle. In a game played yes­ter­day, Supersport United defeated Kaizer Chiefs 1–0 while today’s matches are as follows:

Golden Arrows vs Jomo Cosmos — Chatsworth Stadium — On now
Platinum Stars vs AmaZulu — Royal Bafokeng Stadium — 7.30pm
Santos vs Bloem Celtic — Newlands Stadium — 7.30pm
Black Aces vs Moroka Swallows — Puma Rugby Stadium — 7.30pm
Free State Stars vs Ajax Cape Town — Charles Mopeli Stadium — 7.30pm
Orlando Pirates vs Mamelodi Sundowns — Coca-Cola Park — 7.30pm
Bidvest Wits vs Maritzburg Utd — Bidvest Stadium — 8pm

Meanwhile, it has been repor­ted that SuperSport player Petrus Mahlatsi has been dis­charged from a Pietermaritzburg hos­pital fol­low­ing his sick­en­ing mid-air col­li­sion with Maritzburg’s Byrone Hendricks in a PSL clash that took place on August 7 at Woodburn Stadium. Although he sus­tained a rather ser­i­ous head injury (the exact details of which have not been made known) it is com­fort­ing news to hear that Mahlatsi is out of hos­pital and will def­in­itely resume his career although he has been side­lined for at least two months as a res­ult of the injury.

‘Untouchable’ to defend title against ‘Volcano’
Talented South African fighter Zolani ‘Untouchable’ Marali (pic­tured) will defend his International Boxing Organisation (IBO) super feather­weight title against Korea’s Ji Hoon Kim at Emperor’s Palace, east of Johannesburg, on September 12. Marali will be mak­ing his first defence of the title he won when he defeated Mexican Gamaliel Diaz on points over 12 rounds at Emperor’s Palace on April 2 this year.

The 32-year-old south­paw from Mdatsane in the Eastern Cape has an impress­ive record of 20 wins and two defeats with 13 of those vic­tor­ies com­ing via the short route. The 22-year-old Kim, who is nick­named the Volcano due to his explos­ive­ness in the ring, will come into this fight brim­ming with con­fid­ence after stop­ping nine of his last ten oppon­ents and Marali will have to be care­ful of expos­ing his chin against the hard punch­ing Korean in what prom­ises to be a crack­ing contest.

In other fights on the bill, the excit­ing Grant Fourie will square off against Jason Biederman for the IBO con­tin­ental light­weight belt while Thomas ‘Tommy Gun’ Oosthuizen will swap punches with Brazil’s Cleber Alves in a con­test for the IBO youth super mid­dle­weight title. In another intriguing match up, Kenya’s Douglas Otieno will tackle Isaac Chilembe for the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Africa light-heavyweight title. Former world light wel­ter­weight and wel­ter­weight cham­pion Ricky Hatton will attend the tour­na­ment as a TV com­ment­ator for the “Night of the Gladiators” tournament.

In another very import­ant bout for South African box­ing, local boy Malcolm Klassen will defend his International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior light­weight title against Robert Guerrero in Houston, Texas on Saturday even­ing. Guerrero is con­sidered by many to be the best in the world in the divi­sion, but Klassen will be brim­ming with con­fid­ence after his crush­ing vic­tory over the highly exper­i­enced Cassius Baloyi in his last out­ing and it will not be sur­pris­ing if he pulls off a vic­tory against Guerrero.

In inter­na­tional action over the week­end, 40-year-old Roy Jones Jr won the battle of the hooks when ‘Captain Hook’ as Jones Jr is call­ing him­self these days, poun­ded out an 11^th round TKO vic­tory over faded former IBF super-middleweight cham­pion Jeff ‘Left Hook’ Lacy. Jones will face newly crowned IBO cruis­er­weight cham­pion Danny Green who stopped Julio Cesar Dominguez on the under­card to take the title. Australian Green’s pre­vi­ous fight was against former South African mid­dle­weight cham­pion Anthony van Niekerk, whom he des­troyed inside two rounds in April this year. Jones also has a South African vic­tim on his record, the former mul­tiple weight world cham­pion knocked out former World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Federation (WBF) super-middleweight cham­pion Thulani ‘Sugerboy’ Malinga way back in 1993.

Jaco tri­umphs in play­off at Erinvale
Jaco Ahlers (pic­tured) is the new Vodacom Business Origins of Golf Tour Erinvale cham­pion. The 27-year-old South African, who hails from Centurion in Pretoria, defeated Ulrich van den Berg in a play­off to take the title and claim a maiden pro­fes­sional vic­tory. Ahlers and Van Den Burgh both pro­duced rounds of 71 and 68 at the end of reg­u­la­tion play (the match had been reduced to just 36 holes as a res­ult of bad weather) to tie for the lead on nine under par, for­cing the playoff.

Ahlers kept his cool and secured the win by hol­ing his putt for birdie on the open­ing play­off hole (the 18^th) while Van Den Burg could only muster par for second place. The tour­na­ment raised R228 000 for char­ity with cel­lu­lar com­mu­nic­a­tions giant Vodacom donat­ing R500 for every birdie recor­ded dur­ing the tournament.

Final Scores (Top eight fin­ish­ers only)
135 — Jaco Ahlers 64 71 (won on first hole of sud­den death play­off)
135 — Ulrich van den Berg 67 68
136 — Jaco Van Zyl 71 65
138 — Doug McGuigan 69 69, Reggie Adams 67 71
139 — Chris Swanepoel 71 68, Andrew Curlewis 70 69, Dewald Smit 67 72

Meanwhile, South African stal­wart Ernie Els recor­ded one under 287 to fin­ish in joint sixth pos­i­tion in the PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, USA. The ‘Big Easy’ recor­ded rounds of 75, 68, 70 and 74 to tie with three other play­ers for sixth while fel­low South African Tim Clark shot a final round 74 for one over 289 to share six­teenth pos­i­tion with Hunter Mahan of the U.S. and Vijay Singh of Fiji. Other South Africans in the field included Charl Schwartzel (294), Retief Goosen (295) and Rory Sabbatini (299). The tour­na­ment was one by Yang Yong-Eun of Korea (280) who defeated legendary American Tiger Woods by three strokes.

Hennie makes it a double at Zwarkops
There was no stop­ping triple South African Wesbank V8 Champion Hennie Gronewald (Timken Holden) at the Zwartkops International Raceway on Saturday when he won both races to mount a ser­i­ous chal­lenge to the Auby fam­ily who have dom­in­ated the com­pet­i­tion this year. Groenwald (pic­tured) now lies in joint third pos­i­tion with Deon Auby (ELT Holden) in the cham­pi­on­ship with six races left. Championship leader Marc Auby (ELT Jaguar) fin­ished 1.3 secs behind Groenwald in the first race with 17-year-old brother Brandon (ELT Jaguar) and father Deon fin­ish­ing third and fourth respectively.

The second race saw Groenwald start in the middle of the field, but his aggress­ive driv­ing enabled him to pass seven cars to tuck in behind Franco di Matteo (Varta Jaguar) for second pos­i­tion. Di Matteo was how­ever denied a chance of vic­tory when he broke a half– shaft going into the last lap allow­ing Gronewald through to take a com­fort­able three second win from Deon Auby with Richard Pinard (Timken Jaguar) third and Jaco Correia fourth.

There was also plenty of action in the Bridgestone Production Car Championship with former national cham­pion Leeroy Poulter (GP Windscreens Nissan 350Z) emer­ging as the over­all win­ner for the day in round six of the cham­pi­on­ships. Poulter fin­ished fifth over­all after qual­i­fy­ing in fifth pos­i­tion for race one with team-mate Marco da Cunha (Tubular Nissan 350Z) fin­ish­ing just out of the points in ninth pos­i­tion. The race was one by Melvill Priest (Audi A4) who drove very pro­fes­sion­ally to secure the win from Michale Stephen (Audi Quattro).

Race two saw Poulter slug it out with cham­pi­on­ship leader Johan Fourie (Audi Quattro) for second place with the Nissan driver pre­vail­ing by a mere 0.8 secs. Anthony Taylor (BMW 330i) won the race after lead­ing from start to fin­ish. There are still three rounds of the cham­pi­on­ship remain­ing with 10 points sep­ar­at­ing first from fourth in the class A title chase. Taylor enjoys a slender two-point (80–78) lead over Fourie with Poulter just nine points adrift of Taylor.

The non-stop action con­tin­ued for spec­tat­ors in the Engen Volkswagen Polo Cup, which saw team-mates Devin Robertson and Gennaro Bonafede emerge from round six of the cham­pi­on­ship in second and third places respect­ively in the points stand­ings. Bonafede was cred­ited with third over­all for the day after fin­ish­ing fifth and fourth in the two heats, while Robertson lost his cham­pi­on­ship lead after being involved in incid­ents in both races which meant he only scored nine points for a 10^th and a sev­enth. Mathew Hodges now leads the cham­pi­on­ship with 126 points with Robertson (114) and Bonafede (102) in second and third respect­ively. Byran Morgan is lying in fourth pos­i­tion on 92 points.

The next round of all three cham­pi­on­ships takes place on September 5 at Phakisa Freeway in the Free State.

Photo Credits:
SA pin­ning hopes on Caster in Berlin — Photo –  Caster Semenya: Source – www.lexpress.mu
Bulls squeak past Griquas while Sharks devour Lions — Photo – Pedrie Wannenburg: Source – www.zimbio.com
Ajax and Arrows win open­ing MTN8 semi’s — Photo – Dipsy Selolwane: Source – www.cosafa.com
‘Untouchable’ to defend title against ‘Volcano’ — Photo – Zolani Marali: Source – www.mysupersport.com
Jaco tri­umphs in play­off at Erinvale — Photo – Jaco Ahlers: Source – www.thatsgame6.com
Hennie makes it a double at Zwarkops — Photo – Hennie Gronewald in his Timken Motorsport Jaguar: Source – www.motorpics.co.za