Sports Wrap — The week that was in South African Sports

The week that was in South African Sports and whats com­ing up - by Guy Mortimer

Khotso Mokoena

Athletics — South African 1500m run­ner Johan Cronje pos­ted an impress­ive time of 3 min 36.74 sec to fin­ish sev­enth at the second edi­tion of the pres­ti­gi­ous inter­na­tional meet­ing in Tangier, Morocco, on Sunday. American Olympic sen­sa­tion Bernard Lagat won the race in 3 min 32.56 sec.

Another South African, Ofentse Mogawane, fin­ished a cred­ible third in the 400m event when he pos­ted a time of 46.81 sec. Mogawane is still try­ing to achieve the qual­i­fy­ing mark of 45.55 sec for the upcom­ing World Championships in Berlin, Germany next month. Cronje, on the other hand, has already qual­i­fied for the 1500m event in Berlin ...

Meanwhile, in Greece on Monday, former world junior 400m hurdles cham­pion LJ van Zyl pos­ted a superb time of 48.18 sec to fin­ish second behind Isa Phillips of Jamaica who tri­umphed in an very quick 48.09 sec. The Pretoria nat­ive recor­ded his fast­est time of the year and nar­rowly missed out by a mere 0.02 sec of record­ing his best ever time. Van Zyl, who has already qual­i­fied for Berlin, is look­ing like a real threat to the com­pet­i­tion in Germany and hopes are high that he will be able to being back a medal for his country.

In another out­stand­ing per­form­ance by a South African ath­lete, this time at the Lappeenranta Elite Athletics Games in Finland on Sunday even­ing, long jumper Khotso Mokoena won his event in fine style with a jump of 8.24m to oust Finnish star Tommy Evila by 23cm. Fellow South African Ockert Cilliers also pro­duced a note worthy per­form­ance by win­ning won the 400m hurdles in 50.08 sec.

Lovemore Ndou

Boxing — Three International Boxing Organisation (IBO) world cham­pi­on­ship title fights were decided on Saturday at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park, Gauteng and the pick of the bunch was an abso­lute thriller between 32-year-old Phillip ‘The Time Bomb’ Ndou and his name­sake Lovemore ‘The Black Panther’ Ndou for the wel­ter­weight title. The sched­uled 12 rounder, an all South African affair, went the full dis­tance with the 37-year-old Lovemore pre­vail­ing by a unan­im­ous points decision in a real war which saw both box­ers exchange punches with intense ferocity.

In the first title bout of the even­ing, Simphiwe ‘V12’ Vetyeka won a unan­im­ous points decision over Filipino fighter Eric ‘The Maverick’ Barcelona in a scrappy fight for the ban­tam­weight cham­pi­on­ship. The 28-year-old fighter from Duncan Village in the Eastern Cape held to many guns for the 27-year-old Barcelona, whose wild flur­ries failed to impress the judges. Vetyeka ded­ic­ated his win to former pres­id­ent Nelson Mandela and had noth­ing but praise for his rugged oppon­ent who, to his credit, never gave up trying.

In the third and final title bout of the even­ing, tal­en­ted Thomas ‘Tommy Gun’ Oosthuizen retained his unbeaten record and cap­tured the Youth Light-Heavyweight cham­pi­on­ship (for fight­ers under 24) when he scored a split decision points vic­tory over the hard punch­ing Jared ‘The Storm’ Lovett in another all South African match up over 10 rounds. The 22-year Oosthuizen util­ised his height and reach advant­age and super­ior box­ing skills to frus­trate the brawl­ing Lovett (also 22), who often resor­ted to illegal tac­tics like hit­ting behind the head to try and even mat­ters. Ultimately though, it was to no avail as Oosthuizen got the nod on two of three judges’ score­cards to secure the win.

Graeme Smith

Cricket - The International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy tour­na­ment will be held on these shores in September and Cricket South Africa (CSA) have already named a pro­vi­sional squad of 20 play­ers to com­mence duty for the Proteas. Hashim Amla, Charl Langeveldt, Makhaya Ntini, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Vaughn van Jaarsveld have all been added to the squad that rep­res­en­ted South Africa at the ICC World Twenty20 in England in June. However, the squad will be cut to a final line-up of 15 play­ers before the start of the tournament.

The squad is as fol­lows: Graeme Smith (capt), Johan Botha (vice-capt), Yusuf Abdulla, Hashim Amla, Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Charl Langeveldt, Albie Morkel, Morne Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Justin Ontong, Wayne Parnell, Robin Peterson, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Roelof van der Merwe and Vaughn van Jaarsveld.

BP Volkswagen team

Motorsport - The fifth round of the Sasol SA Rally Championships saw Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries claim their third win of the sea­son and extend their cham­pi­on­ship lead to 14 points over fierce rivals Johnny Gemmell and Peter Marsh (S2000 Castrol Toyota Auris), who fin­ished fourth over­all in the Volkswagen Rally which ended in the Eastern Cape on Saturday. Fekken and Arries steered their S2000 BP Volkswagen Polo to a com­mand­ing 59 sec win with team-mates Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson and Jan Habig and Douglas Judd fin­ish­ing second and third respect­ively to ensure a per­fect top three fin­ish for the BP Volkswagen team.

Fekken and Arries lead the cham­pi­on­ship with 90 points, closely fol­lowed by Gemmell and Marsh and Habig and Judd on 84 and 75 points respect­ively. The next round of the cham­pi­on­ship is the Osram Rally from 21–22 August.

In motor­cross action, 20-year-old South African rider Shannon Terreblanche achieved tenth pos­i­tion over­all in the fourth round of the German ADAC Motocross Masters series at Ried am Innkreis in Austria on Sunday. Terreblanche pos­ted the fifth-fastest qual­i­fy­ing time on his Sturm Kawasaki, but acci­dents in both heats saw him hav­ing to fight his way from the back of the field to get amongst the points.

Willem de Waal

Rugby - The first round of the ABSA Currie Cup Premier Division pro­duced some excit­ing action, not to men­tion a few sur­prises, when a pumped up Western Province defeated defend­ing cham­pi­ons the Natal Sharks 29–15 at a soggy Newlands in Cape Town while the Free State Cheetahs were upset 28–18 by a determ­ined Griquas out­fit at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein.

The Sharks were never allowed to get into their stride against Province and were outscored by two tries to nil in an enter­tain­ing match. Flyhalf Willem de Waal had an excel­lent game for the home side, notch­ing up 19 points with his accur­ate goal kick­ing. The match up between Griquas and the Cheetahs was a tense affair but the vis­it­ors fully deserved their vic­tory, outscor­ing their oppon­ents by four tries to two and on this form can­not be taken lightly by any team.

In other res­ults, the Blue Bulls edged the Lions 19–13 at Loftus Versveld in Pretoria while the men from the Boland accoun­ted for the Leopards 26–18 at the Boland Stadium in Wellington. The res­ults mean that Griquas take an early lead in the com­pet­i­tion with Western Province, Boland and the Bulls in second, third and fourth pos­i­tions respectively.

This weekend’s action sees the Sharks take on Boland at the Absa Stadium in Durban while the Cheetahs face the Lions at the Coca-Cola Park Stadium in Johannesburg. In other games, Griquas square off against the Leopards in Kimberley while the Bulls tackle Western Province in Pretoria.

Vladimer Vermezovic

Soccer - Kaizer Chiefs held Iran to a goal­less draw in a friendly held at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein on Saturday. Although Chiefs tried hard to break through the Iranians’ well-organised defence they were unsuc­cess­ful and had to settle for the draw, which was per­haps an accur­ate reflec­tion of proceedings.

Despite not being able to secure a vic­tory, Chiefs coach Vladimer Vermezovic will be happy with the com­mit­ment demon­strated by his play­ers and his team’s res­ult will bode well for the Amakhosi’s upcom­ing clash against Manchester City on Tuesday, July 21 in a Vodacom Challenge match in Durban.

Swimming - Leone Vorster con­tin­ued her excel­lent run of form when she cap­tured a bronze medal in the 400m free­style at the World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia on Saturday even­ing. The Limpopo star, who holds the national 200m free­style record, recor­ded a time of 4 min 13.18 sec, which was good enough for third pos­i­tion and South Africa’s first swim­ming medal at the event since 1999.

Jo-Wilfied Tsonga

Tennis - The SA Open staged at Montecasino earlier in the year was a resound­ing suc­cess, attract­ing top inter­na­tional play­ers of the cal­ibre of Frenchman Jo-Wilfied Tsonga and Spainard David Ferrer, and South African Tennis Association (Sata) CEO Ian Smith plans to keep it that way. The ten­nis boss recently returned from London where he has been hold­ing talks with ATP tour­na­ment dir­ect­ors aimed at secur­ing play­ers for next year’s event.

Although no big names have been signed as yet, Smith is hop­ing to organ­ise an even bet­ter field for the 2010 tour­na­ment. We’ll have to wait and see if he man­ages to come up with the goods, but I’m one journo who will be hold­ing thumbs that he gets it right because we’ll be in for a crack­ing good tour­na­ment if he does.

Photo Credits:
1. Khotso Mokoena – www.sporting-heroes.net
2. Lovemore Ndou – www.boxingpress.de/fundgrube/index.html
3. Graeme Smith – mys­port blog.files.wordpress.com
4. BP Volkswagen team – Danie Van Jaarsveld (www.motorpics.co.za)
5. Willem de Waal – Gallo Images/Getty Images (Europe)
6. Vladimer Vermezovic – www.kickoff.com
7. Jo-Wilfied Tsonga – blogs.aba.net.au/…/tsonga.html

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