Tayla Kavanagh shines on opening day of SA Athletics Champs
· Citizen
Considering the quality and depth of South African sprinting, it’s not often a distance runner outshines the speedsters at a national championship, but Tayla Kavanagh pulled it out the bag on Thursday with a stunning performance in Stellenbosch.
Competing on day one of the SA Athletics Championships at Coetzenburg Stadium, Kavanagh hit the front from the gun, setting an intense pace in the women’s 5,000m race.
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She overlapped all but one other athlete in the field, securing a convincing victory in 14:58.52.
In the process, she climbed to second place in the all-time national rankings over 12-and-a-half laps. Only SA record holder Elana Meyer, who ran 14:44.05 in Belgium in July 1995, has gone faster.
“I was just like ‘let’s give it a good go today and see how the body responds’. As each lap went by I heard (from the stadium announcer) that I was pretty much on the record, and I was quite surprised. I kept hearing it and I was like ‘ok, just block it out and run as fast as you can’,” Kavanagh said afterwards.
“I was pretty much giving it my all but I try to focus on the process, and not really the outcome, and I ran a really big personal best today, so it was nice to get that and to know I was pretty close to the record.”
Sprint finals
Meanwhile, in the 100m finals, Gift Leotlela and Joviale Mbisha retained their national titles in races that went down to the wire.
The men’s contest was so close, Leotlela thought he had been edged out by Benji Richardson before the trackside scoreboard indicated that Leotlela had won in 10.15.
Richardson, who has switched allegiance to Ireland (his country of birth) but still qualifies to run at the SA Championships as a dual citizen, took second place in 10.16.
Experienced 400m world record holder Wayde van Niekerk, who won his 100m semifinal, did not line up for the start after limping off the track grabbing his thigh.
Having made a spectacular comeback to top-flight competition last season, Leotlela was delighted to successfully defend his title.
“Winning SA Champs back-to-back means a lot, and it shows that we are building momentum from last year going into this season,” he said.
Field events
The women’s 100m final was even closer, with Mbisha and former SA champion Viwe Jingqi (who finished second) recording the same time of 11.55 in a photo finish. It was later determined that Mbisha had won by four thousandths of a second (0.004).
In field events, Douw Smit, Aiden Smith and Colette Uys produced the standout performances on day one of the three-day domestic track and field showpiece.
Smit won the men’s javelin throw final with a best heave of 80.88m, while world student champion Smith won gold in the men’s shot put with a 20.51m throw, and Uys took the women’s discus throw with a 57.86m attempt. All three athletes retained the titles they won last year.