MOKGETHI NKOSI
The University of Pretoria’s athletics team was crowned the university athletics champions at an athletics meeting at Tuks Stadium last Monday.
The event began with a flag ceremony led by the captains from the eight participating universities.
Tuks men’s 110m hurdler Tsepo Lefete gave Tuks a great start, winning his event in a time of 13:96 seconds. This time qualifies him for the Student World Games and broke the university athletics record. Tuks women’s 100m hurdler Rikenette Steenkamp who finished with an impressive time of 13:59 seconds.
The Tuks athletes started losing momentum as the games progressed, dropping points in the men’s and women’s triple jump, javelin and high jump. Jaco Engelbrecht from the University of Johannesburg and Chad Herman from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University dominated the field events with both athletes setting records. Melissa Hewitt from the North West University (NWU) won the women’s 100m in a time of 11:94 seconds. Danel Prinsloo from the University of the Free State won the women’s 800m in just over two minutes and André Olivier from NWU won the men’s 800m with a time of 1 minute 46 seconds.
Tshwane University of Technology ended the individual part of the games with Thembi Baloyi’s win in the women’s 3 000m steeplechase which she finished in a time of 11:03 minutes.
Maties dominated the first of the relays but Tuks clinched the title as varsity athletics champions by winning the 4×100m relay, which was the last event of the night. Vice-Chancellor Professor Cheryl de la Rey told Perdeby that she was very pleased about the performance of the Tuks athletes. Students can be inspired by the resilience of these athletes, she said.
Photo : Brad Donald
