Two Pretoria athletes shine in Europe on their way to Tokyo
Two local athletes from Pretoria showed in bad weather at an athletics meeting in Poland that they are ready to give good performances at the Olympic Games in Tokyo later this month.
Gift Leotlela proved that winning is addictive when he won the 100 metres in 10.24s in Bydgoszcz, Poland, on Wednesday night.
It was the Tuks Olympian sprinter’s second victory in nine days. He also won last week in Madrid. If Leotlela can have one wish come true while he is racing in Europe, it would be for that one perfect day. A day in which it is not raining, and there is no wind blowing.
“The weather was perfect in the two days before the meeting. But as luck would have, everything changed on race day. First, it got cold. Then it started to drizzle. To top it all, we again had to race into a headwind,” Leotlela explained.
He said the easy thing would have been to become discouraged or upset. It would, however, not have changed anything.
“So, to me, it boiled down to controlling the controllable. I made peace that a fast time was not on the cards,” he remarked.
Leotlela explained that his focus was on executing the perfect race as far as his technique is concerned.
“I am happy with how my race played out. I was fast out of the ‘blocks’, and I managed to maintain my top-end speed,” he concluded.
Jerome Blake (Canada) was second in 10.28s and Mike Rodgers (USA) in 10.33s. The athletes had to contend with 1.8m/s headwind.
Leotlela plans to compete in two more races before the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Photo: Karen Viljoen
* The 21-year-old Tuks Olympian Kyle Blignaut has all the makings to become one of South Africa’ athletics legends. He might not have achieved a podium place on Wednesday night in Bydgoszcz, Poland, but the 20.91 metres he threw is 30 centimetres further than during last week’s Janusza Kusocinskiego meeting in the same country.
New Zealand’s Val Walsh won with a throw of 21.46 metres. Armin Sinancevic (Serbia) was second with 21.16m, and Chuk Enekwechi (Nigeria) third with 21.11m. Blignaut was fifth.
However, the youngster proved he could handle pressure. His first four attempts were all no throws. So, he was under real pressure when he stepped into the circle for the fifth round. He had to get some numbers on the scoreboard. Luckily everything clicked. He threw 20.81m. It was the confidence booster he needed. He let rip with a 20.91m effort in his last attempt.
Blignaut admitted the next day that his body is starting to take strain. Wednesday night was the fourth time in five weeks that he competed in Europe. To date, he has two third-place finishes and a second to his name. Considering that it is the first time he is competing in Europe against senior athletes, his performances are impressive.
According to Blignaut, he surprised himself with his consistency.
“I have thrown 20.50 plus metres each time I competed, but I think it is time for me to go home now. It would be good to work with my coach, Pierre Blignaut, before the Tokyo Olympics. He might need to finetune my technique a bit. My last competition will be next week in Budapest,” the big man concluded.
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