Adnaan Mohamed in Paris
They call Paris the City of Light and Jo-Ane van Dyk’s name shone as brightly as anything on Saturday night as she earned Team SA’s sixth medal of the 2024 Olympics.
The bubbly 26-year-old had arrived at her second Olympics in the best form of her life. She’d come off a gold medal in the 2024 African Games and immediately showed her intentions by breezing through the qualification earlier in the week.
Then, she pulled out an opening throw of 64.22m, packed her javelin back in her bag and went back to the athletes village.
She had produced the best throw of her life in the process and automatically qualified for the final, where she was hoping to emulate fellow javeliner Sunette Viljoen (2016) in winning a javelin medal for her country on the biggest stage of all.
At a packed Stade de France on the final night of track and field action at these Games she produced a third effort of 63.93m, which highlighted the form she’d shown all week, and moved her up into the silver medal, behind Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi, who had opened with a winning 65.80m.
It was an emotional evening all round, because Van Dyk is coached by Terseus Liebenberg, who also guided Viljoen to the silver medal at Rio 2016.
Van Dyk had attended her first Olympics in Tokyo and there she was eliminated in qualifying with a best of 57.69m. Here, she was three years older, three years wiser and a different athlete entering the prime of her career
The South African’s first throw of 59.72m had been below par, byy her standards. She upped it by exactly two metres to 61.72m, which still wasn’t enough to get into medal contention on a stacked leaderboard. However, her third throw was another two metres further and that 63.93m was to be 25cm better than bronze medallist Nikola Ogrodnikova, and 53cm better than the fourth-placed finisher, Sara Kolak.
In other action on Saturday night, high jumper Brian Raats couldn’t better his first jump, where he cleared 2.17m, and ended up in 12th, with the gold going to New Zealand’s Hamiush Kerr with 2.36m.
Team SA’s men’s 4x400m took to the track having been reinstated into the final after the referee intervened on Friday following interference and a tumble in their heat. Gardeo Isaacs, in lane one, took the opening, which he covered in 45.67sec, leaving Zakhiti Nene at the back of a nine-country field.
However, Nene again scorched around the track and has been Team SA’s best 400m athlete these Games. He made up four places with a lap of 43.81. Lythe Pillay kept the momentum with a 43.97 run and at the changeover South Africa were still fifth.
And that’s where they stayed as Antonie Nortje finished off with a 44.67. With the United States winning gold in an Olympic record 2:54.43, South Africa’s quartet set a national record 2:58.12
Photo: ROGER SEDRES
