COURAGEOUS Jerry Motsau picked up South Africa’s sixth medal of the World Student Games in Russia yesterday, holding on to take the men’s 1500m bronze in a bitterly contested finish.
The top five runners crossed the line within four-tenths of a second of each other.
Winner Valentin Smirnov and runner-up Jere my Rae of Canada had their turbos firing at the end, but of the rest, Motsau was the bravest and the strongest.
He clocked 3min, 39.51sec – 12-hundredths of a second too slow for gold and a mere eight- hundredths of a second in front of fourth-placed Egor Nikolaev of Russia.
Andries Hlaselo, the other SA entrant, ended seveth in 3:40.95.
Anneri Ebersohn, sister of the rugby twins Sias and Robert, ended fifth in the women’s 400m hurdles in 57.58sec after stumbling on the penul timate jump.
Even with a flawless race Ebersohn would have struggled to make the podium, with the first three ladies all dipping below 55 seconds.
The front-runner to keep SA’s medal haul ticking over today is Anaso Jobodwana, the newly crowned 100m champion, who will be looking to add the 200m title tonight.
He clocked the second-fastest time of the 200m heats yesterday to qualify for the semifinals this afternoon. The final is scheduled for tonight (6.25pm SA time).
Jobodwana, who made the 200m final of the Olympic Games last year, won his heat in 20.76sec, marginally slower than Japan’s Shota Iizuki, who went 20.74 in a separate race.
SA’s other sprinter, Gideon Trotter, qualified for the semifinals in 21.07sec.
PC Beneke, who will compete at the world championships in Moscow next month, will com pete in the 400m hurdles final tonight.
Civil engineering student Giulio Zorzi, the training partner of Olympic champion Cameron van der Burgh, was scheduled to land early this morning and then race in the 100m breaststroke six hours later.
Zorzi, who had been delayed in Paris waiting for his Russian visa to arrive by courier, took the travel hiccough in his stride.
“Off to mother Russia,” he tweeted yesterday afternoon. “Land 3.30am and then race at 9. Hmmm good times :-)”
The track and field athletes are officially not recognised by the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), which suspended Athletics SA last month.
Sascoc, despite wanting to omit the athletes from the SA team, yesterday congratulated them on their medal-winning performances.