Sprinters and Distance athletes take centre stage at third Yellow Pages Series
Athletics South Africa announced today that the sprinters and distance athletes will take centre stage at the third Yellow Pages Series meeting at King's Park Stadium, Durban, this Friday night. With several of the countries other top athletes also in action exciting performances can be expected.
All eyes will be on the sprints where the country's top athletes will clash. Thuso Mpuang showed last week in Pretoria that he has big plans for this season and his clash with Kagiso Kumbane, Leigh Julius and local favourites Sherwin Vries and Lee-Roy Newton will be one of the highlights of the meeting.
All of them will however have to watch out for newcomer Thabo Mathibidi. The Rustenburg athlete was one of the stars last week and although running in the B race clocked times equal to his more fancied peers.
Zimbabwe's Talkmore Nyongani, still smarting after his defeat at the hands of LJ van Zyl in the 400m last week, will be out for revenge and he will clash with the likes of Pieter Smith and the former KwaZulu Natalian, Sibusiso Sishi.
LJ van Zyl will be in action for the first time in the 400m hurdles this year. Van Zyl's form at the first two Yellow Pages meetings suggests that he can open his World Championships campaign with a top international time.
Equally Robert Oosthuizen's first outing in the men's javelin will be closely watched. Oosthuizen is known as a tough competitor and a distance of 80m plus is not out of the question. He can also help Hardus Pienaar to achieve his goal of an 80m throw.
The country's top athletes will start in the 1500m for men. Juan van Deventer, who last year had his best season to date, will be up against the likes of Johan Cronje, Dumisane Hlaselo, Andre Olivier and the experienced Mbulaeni Mulaudzi. The latter will use the race as a tune up for his three 800m races later in the Series but he can assist the other athletes to set fast times.
In the women's 400m Tsholofelo Thipe, who started her season impressively last week, will once again be up against Amanda Kotze who would like to build on her solid performance of last week.
Amongst the other highlights will be Sunette Viljoen in the women's javelin, Janice Josephs and Isabel le Roux in the women's 100m and Ruben Ramolefi's challenge for a fast time in the 3000m steeplechase.
The main programme will start at 18:00 on Friday, 6 February.
