This Week in South African Sports — 26 August 2009

Rich medal haul for South African trio in Berlin
Mbulaeni Mulaudzi had the last laugh at the World Athletics Championships at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on Sunday when he ran a superb 800m race to clock 1 min, 45.29 secs to secure a gold medal for South Africa. Mulaudzi did not run par­tic­u­larly well in his semi-final heat on Friday, fin­ish­ing fourth and hav­ing to wait to see if he would qual­ify for the final as the second of two fast­est losers, which he did by the smal­lest of margins.

And so, des­pite his some­what tepid per­form­ance in the semi-finals, the 29-year-old Mulaudzi found him­self in the final against the world’s best 800m run­ners, includ­ing the likes of defend­ing cham­pion Alfred Yego from Kenya and Yusuf Kamel of Bahrain ...

However, it was clearly evid­ent that Mulaudzi meant busi­ness this time round, as he ran hard from the out­set, dic­tat­ing the pace and tak­ing the field through the open­ing lap in a brisk 53.44 secs. The South African applied fur­ther pres­sure on the field at the 600m mark, upping the pace and start­ing to pull away from his rivals going into the final stretch, but as he powered down the home straight, Yego and Kamel fought back fiercely, and it required a des­per­ate dip into the line to secure vic­tory for Mulaudzi, who lat sprawled on the track, utterly spent after his dra­matic effort. Yego and Kamel were cred­ited with identical times of 1:45.35 for sil­ver and bronze respectively.

The vic­tory clearly meant the world to Mulaudzi who screamed in delight while sit­ting on the track, still unable to get to his feet after his energy sap­ping effort. Dramatic it was, dig­ni­fied it was not, nev­er­the­less the SA vet­eran had the last laugh, shut­ting the mouths of his crit­ics and those who felt he did not pos­sess the tac­tical acu­men to win a race of this magnitude.

Mulaudzi’s efforts were well sup­por­ted by fel­low 800m run­ner Caster Semenya, who won gold in the women’s event earlier in the cham­pi­on­ships, and long jumper Khotso Mokoena who secured a sil­ver medal for his coun­try with a leap of 8.47m, bettered only by the 8.54m of American Dwight Phillips. The South African trio of Coolboy Ngamole, Joseph Kekana and Norman Dlomo put up a good per­form­ance in the men’s mara­thon to fin­ish just out of the medals in fifth pos­i­tion. The South Africans were well placed at the 30km mark, only to see the Japanese and Portuguese com­pet­it­ors fight their way through the field to push them out of medal contention.

And so ended another World Athletics cham­pi­on­ships for South Africa, who can be sat­is­fied with their efforts with two golds and a sil­ver to their credit. Of course, the con­tro­versy sur­round­ing Semanye, with her gender being called into ques­tion by the IAAF, cast a dark cloud over the achieve­ments of the South Africans at these cham­pi­on­ships, and it is hoped that this issue can be solved amic­ably and effect­ively by all parties con­cerned. To date, the IAAF’s hand­ling of the situ­ation has been dis­grace­ful, and one sin­cerely hopes that a formal apo­logy is issued by the World Athletics gov­ern­ing body, which should have kept their accus­a­tions against Semanye confidential.

Buoyant Sharks sink Griquas while WP edge Lions in thriller
The 2009 Absa Currie Cup com­pet­i­tion has reached the half way mark and a def­in­ite hier­archy has been estab­lished, with the top four teams dis­tan­cing them­selves from the bot­tom four in the race to secure semi-final spots. The Sharks faced a poten­tially dif­fi­cult test against GWK Griquas at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday after­noon, but passed with fly­ing col­ours as they trounced the dia­mond miners 41–6 (half-time 20–6) scor­ing five unanswered tries in the process.

Sharks fly­half Monty Dumond (pic­tured) had an excel­lent game, slot­ting five pen­al­ties and two con­ver­sions as well as scor­ing a well worked 47^th minute try for a per­sonal tally of 24 points. I have not seen a lot of Dumond, but the quick and com­pact fly­half looks like a really top-notch player, and the Sharks must be delighted that they have someone of his cal­ibre in their squad, over and above their well-stocked cab­inet of Springboks.

Dumond’s job was made all that easier by the well schooled Sharks pack, with hooker Craig Burden and eighth man Keegan Daniel, who scored a fine try shortly before the final whistle, stand­ing out in par­tic­u­lar. Centre Waylon Murray, scrum­half Charl McLeod and left wing Lwazi Mvovo also scored tries to round off the scor­ing for the Durbanites. Naas Olivier replied with two pen­al­ties for Griquas, but it was to no avail as the Sharks romped to yet another vic­tory, while Griquas spluttered to a second straight defeat, after suc­cumb­ing by a single point to the Blue Bulls in their last outing.

Western Province were at home to the Lions at a freez­ing Newlands on Saturday even­ing, and the men from the Cape proved a tad too good for their Gauteng coun­ter­parts, pulling off a slender 25–20 vic­tory after going into the break 18–8 to the good. Province have now won five of their seven games this sea­son and their latest win puts them second in the com­pet­i­tion on 24 points. Griquas and the Blue Bulls have the same total, but Province has a bet­ter point’s dif­fer­ence, push­ing them into second.

The Lions stayed com­pet­it­ive through­out Saturday’s match cour­tesy of the boot of fly­half Herkie Kruger, who stroked over five pen­al­ties for a per­sonal haul of 15 points. However, you can’t argue with a try tally of three to one, with cap­tain and eighth man Luke Watson, slip­pery full­back Joe Pieterson and flanker Duane Vermeulen all touch­ing down for the home side enabling the Capetonians to emerge as deserved winners.

Bulls bully Leopards while Jongi tor­ments Cavaliers in Bloem
The Bulls faced the win­less Platinum Leopards at Loftus on Friday even­ing, but the slaughter that many (includ­ing yours truly) pre­dicted did not mater­i­al­ise as the Bulls struggled to find their rhythm against a plucky and determ­ined Leopards out­fit. The first half was a tight affair which saw the home side go into the break a mere 20–11 to the good. The vis­it­ors points came via an excel­lent try by wing by wing Danie Demas with fly­half Cecil Dumond and replace­ment fly­half Clayton Durnad banging over a pen­alty apiece. The men in blue answered with tries from centre Jaco Pretorious and flank Deon Stegmann with fly­half Burton Francis slot­ting two con­ver­sions, a pen­alty and a well-taken drop goal to com­plete the first half scoring.

Ill dis­cip­line in the second half proved to be the undo­ing of the Leopards as they con­ceded 24 points without post­ing a reply to run out 44–11 losers against their more illus­tri­ous oppon­ents. The Leopards com­mit­ted rugby sui­cide by rack­ing up three yel­low and two red cards to fin­ish the match in tat­ters with just 12 men remain­ing on the field. The Bulls took advant­age of the may­hem by run­ning in four unanswered tries by prop Flip van der Merwe, scrum­half Francois Hougaard, wing Gerhard van den Heever and flanker Dewald Potgieter to send the Leopards pack­ing. However, the Bulls will want to for­get this game in a hurry after suf­fer­ing a series of debil­it­at­ing injur­ies, the worst of them being the broken leg incurred by wing Akona Ndungane, who suffered the injury while attempt­ing to charge down a clear­ance kick.

The Cheetahs were in fine form in front of their home crowd at Vodacom Park in Bloemforntein on Saturday when they thumped the strug­gling Boland Cavaliers 59–8 (half-time 26–8) to pro­mote them­selves to fifth pos­i­tion on the log. Fleet-footed Springbok and Cheetahs wing Jongi Nokwe (pic­tured) ran rings around the hap­less Bolanders to score four spark­ling tries to equal his record-breaking feat for the Springboks against Australia almost a year ago.

The pacy Nokwe dot­ted down in the third, 14^th, 62^nd and 80^th minutes to crush the sprit of the Cavaliers. Two tries by full­back Hennie Daniller and one apiece from flank Frans Viljoen, fly­half Jacques-Louis Potgieter and prop Wian du Preez com­poun­ded the Cavaliers’ misery as the vis­it­ors sank out of sight. Potgieter added four con­ver­sions for good meas­ure while his replace­ment Louis Strydom slot­ted three to round off the scor­ing for the Cheetahs. In reply, the Bolanders could only muster a try from centre Cornel Hendricks and a pen­alty from full­back Justin Peach.

In upcom­ing matches, the Leopards square off against the Cavaliers in the battle of the min­nows in Potchefstroom on Friday even­ing, with Saturday’s fix­tures see­ing the Sharks host­ing Western Province, the Cheetahs pay­ing a visit to GWK Park in Kimberley, and the Lions enter­ing the cauldron that is Loftus Versveld, to face the Bulls.

ABSA Currie Cup Premier Division stand­ings after seven rounds

In upcom­ing Tri-Nations war­fare, the Springboks battle the Wallabies at the Subaico Oval in Perth on Saturday, with the Boks start­ing as favour­ites fol­low­ing their con­vin­cing 29–17 defeat of the Wallabies in their pre­vi­ous encounter on August 8 at Newlands in Cape Town. The All Blacks inflic­ted a nar­row 19–18 defeat on the Australians on Saturday at the Telstra Stadium in Sydney, leav­ing the Wallabies without a win in three outings.

Vodacom Tri-Nations Log

Arrows and Ajax storm into MTN8 semis
The soc­cer gods are smil­ing on Lamontville Golden Arrows and Ajax Cape Town after the two teams booked their places in the MTN8 Cup final after fend­ing off spir­ited chal­lenges from Amazulu and Kaizer Chiefs respect­ively. Arrows defeated KwaZulu-Natal rivals Amazulu 2–1 in last weekend’s battle at the Chatsworth Stadium in Durban and on Saturday even­ing they repeated their vic­tory at the same venue by des­patch­ing Usuthu 2–0 in an enter­tain­ing match.

Abafana Bes’thende have cap­tain Joseph Musonda (pic­tured in the white vest) and mid­fielder Njabulo Manqana to thank for their vic­tory with Musonda col­lect­ing a well placed cross from striker Richard Henyekane to steer the ball past goal­keeper Nicolas Gindre in the 13^th minute. Manqana sealed Usuthu’s fate 17 minutes later when he rifled a shot past a des­pair­ing Gindre to put Arrows 2–0 up in the match and 4–1 on aggreg­ate. Try as they might Amazulu could not get onto the score sheet, and there was to be no deny­ing Abafana Bes’thende as they qual­i­fied for their first top flight cup final.

The other semi-final between defend­ing cham­pi­ons Chiefs and Ajax was a real thriller with the teams dead­locked at 3–3 after 90 minutes at the Orlando Stadium on Sunday after­noon. However, the Cape side advance through to the final 4–3 on aggreg­ate cour­tesy of their 1–0 vic­tory the pre­vi­ous week­end in the first leg semi-final in Cape Town.

Chiefs’ goals came from Jose Torrealba (15^th minute), Josta Dladla (a minute later) and Simphiwe Tshabalala (81^st minute) while Ajax replied with two strikes from Brett Evans (11^th and 33^rd minutes) and a 30-yard screamer from Franklin Cale in the 84^th minute to book their place in the final against Arrows on September 26.

Meanwhile, it was busi­ness as usual in the Absa Premier Soccer League (PSL) with a num­ber of games played through­out the coun­try this past week. MTN8 final­ists Arrows, as well as Black Aces, Amazulu and Bloemfontein Celtic will be happy with their efforts after record­ing wins, while the rest of the matches pro­duced draws.

PSL res­ults (all games played on Wednesday, August 19)
Golden Arrows 2  vs Jomo Cosmos 0
Platinum Stars 0 vs AmaZulu 1
Santos 0 vs Bloem Celtic 1
Black Aces 2 vs Moroka Swallows 1
Free State Stars 1 vs Ajax Cape Town 1
Orlando Pirates 0 vs Mamelodi Sundowns 0
Bidvest Wits 1 vs Maritzburg Utd 1

The struggle for PSL suprem­acy resumes tomor­row when all six­teen teams do battle with the pick of the games likely to be the encounter between Celtic and Supersport United, who are both com­ing off excel­lent vic­tor­ies over Santos and Kaizer Chiefs respect­ively. The action con­tin­ues on Saturday and Sunday with another full round of fixtures.

PSL FIXTURES:

Wednesday 26 August
Golden Arrows vs  Platinum Stars — Chatsworth Stadium: 3.00pm
Jomo Cosmos vs Black Aces — Rand Stadium: 7.30pm
Maritzburg Utd vs AmaZulu — Woodburn Stadium: 7.30pm
Kaizer Chiefs vs Bidvest Wits — Orlando Stadium: 7.30pm
Mamelodi Sundowns vs Free State Stars — Super Stadium: 7.30pm
Moroka Swallows vs Orlando Pirates — Dobsonville Stadium: 7.30pm
Bloem Celtic vs SuperSport United — Seisa Ramabodu Stadium: 7.30pm
Ajax Cape Town vs Santos — Newlands Stadium: 7.30pm

Saturday 29 August
Black Aces vs Golden Arrows — Ackerville Stadium: 3.00pm
SuperSport United vs Ajax Cape Town — Super Stadium: 3.00pm
Platinum Stars vs Maritzburg Utd — Royal Bafokeng Stadium: 3.00pm
Bidvest Wits vs Bloem Celtic — Bidvest Stadium: 8.00pm
Orlando Pirates vs Jomo Cosmos — Orlando Stadium: 8.15pm
Santos vs Mamelodi Sundowns — Newlands Stadium: 8.15pm

Sunday 30 August
AmaZulu vs Kaizer Chiefs — Chatsworth Stadium: 3.00pm
Free State Stars vs Moroka Swallows — Goble Park: 3.00pm

Stone loses out to The Ghost in Houston
Malcolm ‘Stone’ Klassen (pic­tured) suffered only his second pro­fes­sional defeat in nearly eight years when he was out poin­ted by classy American Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero in Houston, Texas, USA on Saturday night. Guerrero won by scores of 117–111, 116–113 and 116–112 to relieve Klassen of his International Boxing Federation (IBF) super feather­weight title after 12 rounds of action, which saw the 28-year-old South African stage a spir­ited rally in the later rounds to try and keep his title. In the end, how­ever, it was to no avail as the crafty American stayed out of trouble to secure the win on the scorecards.

Despite a brave effort, Klassen only had him­self to blame for his defeat hav­ing allowed Guerrero to build up a big points lead in the early and middle rounds, which the Toekomsrus fighter could not erad­ic­ate. Although there were no knock­downs in the fight Guerrero did man­age to send Klassen’s mouth­piece fly­ing in the sixth round cour­tesy of a vicious upper­cut, but the tough as teak South African took the punch well to remain on his feet. The 26-year-old American did equally well to stay in the fight after sus­tain­ing a cut over his left eye in the sev­enth round fol­low­ing a nasty clash of heads.

With the win Guerrero improved his record to 25–1-1 with 17 KO’s while Klassen dropped to 24–5-2 with 15 wins via the short route. It was a dis­ap­point­ing loss for the gritty Klassen who was hop­ing to record his sixth straight vic­tory fol­low­ing a nar­row points defeat to fel­low South African Mzonke Fane in April 2007. However, it must be said that he was up against argu­ably the best fighter in the divi­sion in Guerrero, who relin­quished his IBF feather­weight title last year to move up in weight.

South African junior mid­dle­weight cham­pion Tshepo ‘De La Hoya’ Mashego carved out a vic­tory over Tanzanian Karama Nyilawila in a 10-round bout at the Nasrec Indoor Arena near Johannesburg on Friday night. The 30-year-old Mashego used a pun­ish­ing left jab to rack up the points against the younger Nyilawila (25), who failed to pen­et­rate the defences of the wily South African. There were no knock­downs in the fight and neither fighter appeared vis­ibly hurt at any stage.

The fight was inten­ded to help Mashego pre­pare for his upcom­ing battle with Nikola ‘Johnny Granata’ Stevanovic for the IBF Intercontinental light-middleweight title in Belgrade, Serbia on October 5. The 22-year-old Stevanovic is not much of a puncher with only seven KO’s in 19 out­ings, but he is a cap­able boxer and Mashego will have to be at his very best if he hopes to lift the title from the Serbian, whose only loss was to the undefeated Alexander Abraham of Armenia in January.

In upcom­ing action, big punch­ing Lubabalo Msutu defends his World Boxing Foundation (WBF) ban­tam­weight title against slick box­ing Nick Otieno in a sched­uled 12-round battle at the Orient Theatre in East London on Friday night. The 26-year-old Msutu, who hails from Mdatsane in the Eastern Cape, has a 10–2 record with nine of those ten wins com­ing inside the dis­tance. He is a dan­ger­ous puncher, but he can be out boxed and out punched as both Unathi Gqokoma and Simpiwe Vetyeka proved to his detriment.

However, Msutu must start as a slight favour­ite over Otieno, who may find the going tough in front of Msutu’s rabid homet­own fans. Otieno is a clever boxer who has never been stopped in 20 pro­fes­sional out­ings, but it is doubt­ful if he has faced as hard a hit­ter as Msutu. Nevertheless, the exper­i­enced Kenyan is com­ing off a good win over Ibrahim Adewale whom he out poin­ted over 12 rounds to secure the World Boxing Council (WBC) International ban­tam­weight title in November last year, and Msutu will be fool­ish to take his oppon­ent lightly in what prom­ises to be a clas­sic boxer versus puncher match up.

Photo Credits:
Rich medal haul for SA trio in Berlin — Photo – Mbulaeni Mulaudzi: Source – www2.canoe.com
Buoyant Sharks sink Griquas while WP edge Lions in thriller — Photo – Monty Dumond: Source – www.daylife.com
Bulls bully Leopards while Jongi tor­ments Cavaliers in Bloem — Photo – Jongi Nokwe: Source – www.zimbio.com
Arrows and Ajax storm into MTN8 semis — Photo – Joseph Musonda: Source – www.daylife.com
Stone loses out to The Ghost in Houston — Photo – Malcolm Klassen: Source – www.fightwriter.com