ATHLETICS NEWS - The South African athletics team’s luggage will be just a little heavier on their return to the country after a record medal haul at the World Championships in London.

The country’s previous best was four medals, including two golds, won in Paris in 2003 to finish joint seventh. But, with Wayde van Niekerk and Caster Semenya earning themselves two medals each in London and a gold and bronze coming from the nation’s long jumpers, South Africans can celebrate a record haul of six medals. That meant they finished in third place behind the USA and Kenya on the medal table – another first to be applauded.

It’s a massive achievement for a team that, heading into these championships, was rattled by a selection shambles that saw many of the country’s athletes left at home. Nevertheless, Van Niekerk, Semenya, Luvo Manyonga and Ruswahl Samaai ensured the flag was well represented in London.

Thanks to Lebogang Shange’s fourth-place in the 20km walk and Akani Simbine’s fifth place in the 100m, South Africa finished 11th with 52 points on the placing table, which awards points for places in finals of events. Obviously larger teams have a better chance of a higher finish, with the USA topping that table as well with 272 points, Kenya second on 124 and Great Britain third with 105.

“Obviously I think it’s really, really good – our most medals ever and third on the medal table,” said Semenya’s coach, Jean Verster, after his athlete powered to 800m gold on the last night of competition. “But I also think it’s important to look at that fourth place in the walk and Akani’s fifth place in the 100. It would be nice if we had more placings as well.

“Looking at it critically – I think we need to look at the next generation. We’ve got a few stars now but we’ve got to make sure that the new bunch come through as well. What we’ve actually done quite well over the last decade is getting youngsters exposed to these kinds of championships and I’ll just confirm again that I believe we should have brought as many as possible and the guys that stayed behind should have been here,” he added, referring to the questionable selection policy that Athletics South Africa employed.

Semenya herself was enthusiastic about the performance of Team SA, but also pointed to the next generation. “It’s fantastic. We are growing a lot and hungry enough to be the best in the world. We just have to go back and inspire the young ones so that they can do better,” she said. “But I think it’s also all about the development in South Africa. If we focus more on grooming the young ones, I think we can be a better nation.”

Speaking about the nation’s rise up the medal table, she added: “I think it’s about hard work and dedication. We are inspired by the other generation. We had great runners before and what we tried to do was to improve and take over. I think we are hungry enough.”

The 800 world and Olympic champion pointed to the great performance of the country’s youth athletes who recently topped the medal table at the World Under-18 Championships in Nairobi.

“Those young ones, they actually inspired us. We thought if those ones can do it, we need to come up with something, spice it up, and give it our all. Fortunately we were able to win three golds, a silver and two bronzes which is fantastic. For us, being in the top three in the world – that’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us,” she said, pointing out that top-class coaching has played a massive part in that success.

Verster, meanwhile, hailed these World Championships as one of the best to date.

“It’s been a different championship to be quite honest. There have been a lot of surprises and it just shows you they are all human,” he said.

“This was an excellent world champs in the sense that it just showed again – this is how the sport should be. If you go to the medal table and just look at gold medals, there are 24 different countries that won a gold medal. That I think might be a record. I remember over many years between the Americans, Jamaicans, Kenyans and Ethiopians, almost three quarters of all the gold medals went to them but this year it’s been spread around a lot more countries. That is fantastic for our sport.

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