Johannesburg – It will be back to the drawing board for Athletics South Africa, and its newly elected president James Moloi has no option but to crack the whip after the country’s disappointing performance in track and field events at the Tokyo Olympics this week.
After a promising start when former world junior champion Sokwakhana Zazini qualified for the 400m hurdles semi-finals last Friday, things degenerated to alarming proportions as the week progressed, with no one from Team South Africa ascending the medal podium at the end of the competition.
One of the most disappointing performances in the sprints was that of in-form African 100m record-holder Akani Simbine, who went to Tokyo holding the second-fastest time in the dash this year.
Simbine was blown off to finish agonisingly fourth in the men’s 100m, which was won by Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs.
Like Simbine, Wayde van Niekerk went to Tokyo as a medal hopeful, but the man who broke a 17-year world record when he clinched gold at the 2016 Rio Games faded in his moment to bring glory to the country when he finished a pedestrian fifth in the final race.
Long jumper Ruswahl Samaai was eliminated as an 11th-place finisher during the qualification stage last Saturday, and is now contemplating retiring after failing to follow in Luvo Manyonga’s footsteps since the now-banned star took silver at the 2016 Rio Games.
To add insult to injury, the men’s 4x100m relay team, who many believed stood a good chance of winning a medal, was embroiled in an amateurish baton exchange when Shaun Maswanganyi failed to pass on the baton to Clarence Munyai, making a mess of it as a result.
The team did not finish the race in the heats.
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