Tuks’ athletes won 13 gold medals, the most by any team, during the University Sport South Africa (USSA) Championship at the Pilditch stadium this past weekend, but it was not good enough to win the competition overall.
The University of Johannesburg (UJ) was the overall champion, having scored 322 points during the championship. Tuks was second with 278 points, followed by Northwest University with 276 points.
Although Tuks won the most gold medals, their overall medal total was 28 compared to UJ’s 33.
The Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) finished in fifth place in the team competition with 145 points, winning only nine medals, three of which were gold.
Nine of the 10 gold medals claimed by Tuks were due to the heroics of the female athletes. Colette Uys (three gold) and Karabo Mailula (two gold) were brilliant.
The medical student Uys won the throwing events, winning the shotput (17.16 metres), hammer throw (65.32 metres), and discus (55.48 metres). Her performance in the hammer throw competition was good enough to set a new national universities record.
Mailula won the half marathon in 1:16:08, which is an amazing achievement considering she did so at altitude. Her previous best over 21 kilometres was 1:17.07. The educational student also won the 10,000 metres in a time of 34:53.89.
Information science student Peace Adedokun won the men’s triple jump with a distance of 16.20 metres.
Another Tuks athlete who proved she can recover stronger from a setback is Chane Kok. On Saturday, she won the 100 m hurdles, setting a personal best time of 13.64s, after she could not compete at the SA u.23 championship due to a false start.
Hannah van Niekerk finished second in the 400m hurdles, setting a personal best time of 56.22 seconds. She will represent South Africa in the women’s 4x400m relay this coming weekend at the World Relay Championship in China.
– The Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) finished in fifth place in the team competition with 145 points, while they could only win nine medals. Three of them were gold.
Sprinting sensation and Olympian, Bayanda Walaza, was TUT’s best athlete and he won the 100m for men with a time of 10.0s.
Tumisang Pule from TUT also impressed with his victory in the 10km walk. His time was 0:45:29.75.
– Several athletes who still qualify as students participated in the event independently by invitation. Among them is Zeney Geldenhuys from Pretoria, who won the women’s 400m hurdles in a time of 55.70s.
Young shot putter Aiden Smith was also in action as an independent student and his effort of 20.24m in this event was good enough to take home the gold medal.
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