AGW had just taken a handful of athletes to the Bloemfontein meet to get a taste of competition.
ATHLETICS Griqualand West president Theo Senekal Snr has blamed the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic restrictions for the clutch of underwhelming performances by local athletes at the inter-provincial meeting hosted in the Free State last week.
AGW had taken a handful of athletes to the Bloemfontein meet including the AGW’s two female 100-metre specialists Jinesse Fouché and Janke Coetzer.
Fouché aced her first event which was the 100m dash with a time of 12.32s while Coetzer placed a distant third with a time of 13.21s.
In the 200-metre event Fouché muscled her way into second spot with a time of 25.50s which was 20 seconds off the pace of ultimate winner ChanP Wansbury of Apiros Athletics Club. AGW team member Mienke Nagel of HS Diamantveld took the fifth spot with a time of 28.36s.
Nagel was back in the fray for the 400m race. She narrowly missed out on a podium finish with a time of 61.92s for fourth place.
Coetzer came back into contention in the 100-metre hurdles event managing to clock 17.19s for a third rostrum finish. From here onwards the AGW contingent of female athletes were a constant absence from all of the remaining middle-distance events.
In the men’s sprint stakes AGW put in an appearance at the 100m dash for boys Under-20 years. Keletso Seoposengwe brought up the flag at position eight after stopping the clock with a time of 11.02s.
Seoposengwe along with teammate Gerrie Pretorius more or less landed worse off at ninth and 16th position respectively in the longer 200 sprint event with a time of 22.11.02s and 26.86s.
The association’s fortunes dimmed even further in the senior men’s events as they returned with more dismal performances in the short distances.
Local athletes Danwin Jantjies, Myron De Wee and Thuto Montshiwa came in one after the other in the 100m race. Jantjies and DeWee respectively clocked 11.43s while Montshiwa’s time was 11.44s.
Jantjies did no better in the longer 200-meter event where he was among a nest of athletes whose times were in the twenties with a time of 23.46s.
In the shorter 100m hurdles event Thuto Montshiwa shone with a time of 15.89s and was rewarded with second place.
Theo Senekal Jnr brought up AGW high jump contingent with a juiced up 1.80 metre lift which saw him place second.
Myron De Wee came to play as well in the men’s senior long jump reaching a distance of 6.12 metres for fifth position.
Sydney Steven’s times in the longer 1,500-metre event was an effort in avoiding the bottom. He reached the seventeenth spot from among 21 athletes with a time of 4.45.14.
Senekal said: “At this point we are satisfied at having picked up medals even though the overall performances were not that inspiring. With the Covid around we could not train and pick our athletes at whim.
“However, this should be good for our focus going to the next meet.’’
