Top SA athletes travel to Europe for final Olympic preparations

The South African 100m champion, Akani Simbine, will start his build-up to the Tokyo Olympic Games on 10 June when he competes in the Diamond League meeting in Florence, Italy.

His coach, Werner Prinsloo, wants Simbine to slowly hone his skills over the next few weeks in races. It is a recipe that has worked in the past. According to Prinsloo, there is a very thin line between being race fit and over-raced.

He said the Covid-19 Pandemic complicates planning Simbine’s international racing schedule.

Simbine is not the only Olympian who will be competing in Italy. Wenda Nel is racing the 400m-hurdles at the same event.

Nel’s international campaign starts this coming weekend (6 June), when she races in the Netherlands. The South African 400m-hurdles champion can’t wait as she seems to be in good form. The past weekend during a league meeting at Tuks, she won, running 55.63s. More exciting was setting a new personal best on the same day in the 400 metres when she ran 52.72s.

Gift Leotlela, who for now is South Africa’s fastest sprinter, is on his way to Montreuil, France, to compete there. He became the sixth South African sprinter to dip under ten seconds when he won the 100 metres in 9.94s during the USSA Championships in Johannesburg. The Tuks sprinter is hesitant to make bold predictions.

“I will do my best to keep running well,” is all he promised.

The South African shot-put champion, Kyle Blignaut, is competing on 7 June in Prague. He became South Africa’s third-best shot putter ever when he won gold during the USSA Championships with a throw of 21.21 metres.

Blignaut is confident of throwing even further. He believes a distance of 21.40 and further is possible. According to him, that is what it will take to compete in Tokyo in the Olympic final.