Sports Wrap — What's been happening and what's coming up in SA Sports

29 July – This week in South African Sports — Guy Mortimer reports on what's been hap­pen­ing this past week and what’s com­ing up!

Warren runs down the oppos­i­tion
Fleet-footed South African ath­lete Warren Hendricks (pic­tured) pro­duced a spark­ling per­form­ance at a Finnish Savo Games meet­ing in Lainlahti on Saturday when he stormed to vic­tory in the 800m event in a fast 1 min 47.73 secs.  It was the 21-year-old’s first win in Europe and his second fast­est time within three days after he recor­ded 1:48.48 when fin­ish­ing second in another Finnish meet­ing in Joensuu two weeks ago ...

Warren Hendricks

Beijing Olympic sil­ver medal win­ner Khotso Mokoena beat Brian Johnson of the U.S. by 20cm to notch up a superb win in the long jump at the City Of Barcelona Athletics meet­ing in the Spanish Olympic Stadium on Saturday night. Mokoena’s dis­tance of 8.29m was more than good enough for vic­tory and the 24-year-old sen­sa­tion is now look­ing like a sure bet for a medal in next month’s World Championships in Berlin. Another 24-year-old South African, Peter van der Westhuizen, fin­ished an excel­lent third in the 1500m race in a quick 3:37.83 and will be com­pet­ing in this event in Berlin. It was Van der Westhuizen’s third fast­est time of his career.

In road run­ning action, former African Marathon cham­pion Johannes Kekana won the Foskor F21 half-marathon, which took place in the small town­ship of Namakgale on the out­skirts of Ba-Phalaborwa on Saturday. The 37-year-old South African, who pock­eted R21 100 for his win, broke the tap in 63 min and 25 secs to edge out Zimbabwean Wirimai Juwawo by 11 secs. Lesotho’s Mosuhli Moeketsi fin­ished 5 secs adrift of Juwano to take third position.

Meanwhile, in Durban over the week­end, Gauteng’s Rene Kalmer won the 2009 Spar/Sport and Recreation KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Women’s 10km race in 32:27 to claim R5 000 in prize money and top pos­i­tion on the log in the Grand Prix stand­ings. The lean Mr Price run­ner was closely fol­lowed by Annerien van Schalwyk (32:39) with KZN run­ner Tanith Maxwell a little off the pace in 34:01 for third position.

Thando Vukuza

Vukuza squeaks home against Mbilase
The South African feather­weight title was up for grabs at the Orient Theatre in East London on Friday night and the two will­ing com­batants, Thando Vukuza (pic­tured right) and Manelisi Mbilase, put on a enter­tain­ing show for fans with Vukuza pre­vail­ing by split decision in a tense battle. Judges Andile Matika (116–114) and Simphiwe Mbini (115–114) scored the fight for Vukuza while judge Lulama Mtya gave the nod to Mbilase 116–114.

Although Vukuza was pro­nounced the win­ner it was a fight that could have gone either way with both pugil­ists hav­ing their moments in an enter­tain­ing fight. Vukuza (57.15kg) was rocked by power­ful right hooks on sev­eral occa­sions from defend­ing cham­pion Mbilase (57.05kg), but weathered the storm to snatch vic­tory by the smal­lest of margins.

The bout was a re-match of last October’s clash in Carletonville where Mbilase beat Vukuza on a dis­puted points decision in another tight affair. A third fight between the two game war­ri­ors is likely to gen­er­ate much interest and should fill any venue in the country.

Hanco Kachelhoffer

Kachelhoffer tri­umphs in Engen Challenge
My homet­own of Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal was the venue for the Engen Dynamic Cycling Challenge on Sunday and the well-organised event lived up to the hype by pro­du­cing plenty of fast paced action to enter­tain spectators.

Hanco Kachelhoffer (pic­tured) won the men’s race in 2 hrs 40 min and 33 secs just ahead of his MedScheme team-mates Wylon Woolcock and Arron Brown while Nashua Telecoms rider An-Li Pretorius tri­umphed in the women’s event in 2:59:17. ‘The City of Choice’ proved to be a pop­u­lar loc­a­tion for the event with many riders voicing their approval of the scenic race route.

‘Goose’ pipped at the post by Green
Retief Goosen con­tin­ued where he left off the pre­vi­ous week at the British Open when he fin­ished run­ner up to Australian Nathan Green in the 100^th Canadian Open in Ontario on Monday. The South African was beaten by Green on the second hole of a sudden-death play­off in the $5.1 mil­lion (R40 mil­lion) tour­na­ment, which exten­ded into the week cour­tesy of four days of tor­ren­tial rain, thun­der­storms and light­ning. Green pro­duced some solid all round golf to thwart the chal­lenge of twice-U.S. Open cham­pion Goosen and record his first PGA Tour win. Goosen fin­ished fifth in the British Open, just two shots off the pace of even­tual win­ner, American Stewart Cink.

Vos and Pitchford

Vos and Pitchford power to vic­tory
Donaldson Nissan Navara racers Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford (pic­tured) notched up their fourth win of the sea­son in the fifth round of the Absa Off Road Championship when they powered to vic­tory in the Production vehicle cat­egory on the Sun City 400, which ended in the Pilanesberg on Saturday.

The Nissan duo’s vic­tory ensures they main­tain a big lead in this year’s over­all and premier SP Class Championships. Privateers Gary Bertholdt and Andre Vermeulen took second place in their Atlas Copco Toyota Hilux with former South African cham­pi­ons Neil Woolridge and Kenny Skjöldhammer fin­ish­ing third in the fact­ory twin turbo diesel Ford Ranger.

Round six of the cham­pi­on­ship, the Limpopo 400, takes place from 28–29 August.

Morné Steyn

Boks tri­umph against All Blacks in fierce clash
The Springboks opened their Tri-Nations account with a hard fought 28–19 win over the mighty All Blacks at a chilly Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein on Saturday. The Boks were full value for their vic­tory against a determ­ined, never say die All Blacks side that were always dan­ger­ous des­pite a dom­in­ant dis­play by the Bok forwards.

The clash was an intensely phys­ical encounter with both sides tear­ing into each other with fright­en­ing intens­ity. Flyhalf Ruan Pienaar and centre Jean De Villiers both left the field with injur­ies although they are not repor­ted to be ser­i­ous. Pienaar’s replace­ment, Morné Steyn (pic­tured), took full advant­age of his oppor­tun­ity by kick­ing three vital pen­al­ties to help the Boks to victory.

Pienaar and Jaque Fourie scored a try apiece for the Boks while Frans Steyn slot­ted two pen­al­ties and Pienaar one to round off the scor­ing for the men in ‘Green and Gold’. The New Zealanders respon­ded with a try by centre Conrad Smith, which was con­ver­ted by fly­half Stephen Donald who also added four pen­al­ties for a per­sonal tally of 14 points.

The Boks play the All Blacks again this Saturday at the Absa Stadium in Durban in an encounter that prom­ises to be just as excit­ing as the Bloemfontein clash. Saturday’s win was the per­fect start for the Boks in the com­pet­i­tion as they hope to win all their home games before embark­ing on a three match reverse leg in Australia and New Zealand, begin­ning in Perth on August 29.

Third round Absa Currie Cup Premier Division action saw Griquas record their biggest ever Currie Cup win when they crushed the Boland Cavaliers 80–7 in Kimberley on Saturday after­noon. Griquas scored 12 tries to one against their hap­less oppon­ents and on this form would be a hand­ful for even the best of teams.

The Blue Bulls and the Natal Sharks met in a poten­tially thrill­ing encounter at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Friday even­ing, but the on field dis­play by both sides failed to live up to the pre-match hype at the Sharks ran out 19–13 win­ners in a sloppy match littered with errors.

In the other Friday even­ing clash Western Province accoun­ted for the Free State Cheetahs by the same score to hand the Bloemfontein out­fit their third suc­cess­ive defeat. These are wor­ry­ing times for the 2007 cham­pi­ons who seem unable to get going in this year’s competition.

The Lions romped to an easy 40–19 win over the Platinum Leopards at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Phokeng on Saturday after­noon to com­plete the last match of the round. The men from Johannesburg had too many guns for the Leopards who, to their credit, never game up trying.

Fourth round action this Friday sees the Lions and Western Province at home to log lead­ers Griquas and the Leopards respect­ively with the Bulls and Cheetahs also hav­ing home encoun­ters against Boland and the Sharks.

The South African Sevens rugby team defeated Australia 17–0 in the third-fourth place play­off to win a bronze medal at the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, on Saturday. Paul Delport, Marius Schoeman and Mpho Mbiyoza scored tries for South Africa with cap­tain Mzwandile Stick adding a con­ver­sion to com­plete the scor­ing. The South Africans had earlier been defeated by Fiji 21–7 in the semi-final with the South Pacific Islanders going on to beat Portugal 43–10 in a one sided final to secure the gold medal.

Jeffrey Ntuka

Chiefs burn City to take Vodacom Challenge
Kaizer Chiefs defeated vis­it­ing English Premier league side Manchester City 1–0 cour­tesy of a 43^rd minute strike from Jeffrey Ntuka (pic­tured) to win the Vodacom Challenge tour­na­ment in Pretoria on Saturday.

City, boast­ing a score of big name sign­ings includ­ing the likes of Emmanuel Adebayor and Robinho, failed to impress the 30 000 fans in attend­ance at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium and were undoubtedly below par against a motiv­ated Amakhosi out­fit. City’s loss gave them a one out of three record in the tour­na­ment, which was without ques­tion a dis­ap­point­ing res­ult for a side that, on paper, look rather formidable.

Chiefs, in stark con­trast, were full value for their vic­tory and will now go into the upcom­ing Premier Soccer League (PSL) com­pet­i­tion with lots of confidence.

Cameron van der Burgh

Van der Bergh enters the record books
The World Swimming Championships in Rome proved to be a happy hunt­ing ground for South African Cameron van der Bergh (pic­tured) when he blitzed his way to a new Championship record of 26.92 secs in the 50m breast­stroke qual­i­fy­ing heats on Tuesday morn­ing. Van der Bergh’s time was a mere 0.03 off the world record and he is now without doubt one of the favourite’s to win the event des­pite being up against the likes of world 100m breast­stroke cham­pion Brendon Rickard of Australia, and world record holder Felipe Franca Silva of Brazil.

Durban res­id­ent Ryan Brennan won a bronze medal in the men’s Oceanman final of the lifesav­ing com­pet­i­tion at the 2009 World Games in Taiwan on Saturday. The event was the lifesav­ing equi­val­ent of the tra­di­tional Ironman event (swim­ming, cyc­ling and run­ning) and involves a beach sprint fol­lowed by a 400m swim, 600m board paddle, an 800m ski paddle and then another sprint back up the beach. Brennan is an accom­plished per­former, hav­ing won bronze in the Malibu board race at the World Games in Duisberg, Germany in 2005.

Photo Credits:
Story Title: Warren runs down the oppos­i­tion — Photo: Warren Hendricks: Source: www.results.ub2009.org
Story Title: Vukuza squeaks home against Mbilase — Photo: Thando Vukuza: Source: www.sundayworld.co.za
Story Title: Kachelhoffer tri­umphs in Engen Challenge — Photo: Hanco Kachelhoffer: Source: www.ninetyniner.co.za
Story Title: Boks tri­umph against All Blacks in fierce clash — Photo: Morné Steyn: Source: www.clientimages.teamtalk.com
Story Title: Chiefs burn City to take Vodacom Challenge — Photo: Jeffrey Ntuka: Source: www. sport24.co.za
Story Title: Van der Bergh enters the record books — Photo: Cameron van der Burgh: Source: www.sport24.co.za
Story Title: Vos and Pitchford power to vic­tory — Photo: Duncan Vos and Ralph Pitchford: Source: www.motorpics.co.za