By Karien Jonckheere
With the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games now five months away, 11 South African athletes have already achieved qualification standards for the global showpiece.
The most recent name to be added to that list was Cian Oldknow who ran the second-fastest marathon time by a South African woman of 2 hours 25 minutes and 08 seconds in Seville last weekend.
“I’m still feeling so excited and over the moon about running the qualifying time,” said the 27-year-old. “It was what we had set out to do in Seville. So to have actually done it is both a relief and an amazing feeling of gratitude and joy.”
Also among the qualifiers in the marathon are SA record holder Gerda Steyn who ran a 2:24:03 in December last year and Irvette van Zyl who ran 2:26:11 in Valencia in December 2022, while among the men, only Stephen Makoka has achieved the mark, running 2:06:42 in Osaka last February.
The timeline for achieving qualifying marks in track and field, apart from the 10,000m and combined events, began on 1 July 2023, with the final deadline for qualification coming up on 30 June 2024, while on the road, marathon runners had between 6 November 2022 and 5 May 2024 to qualify.
Among the first to achieve their qualification mark on the track was two-time Olympic 100m finalist Akani Simbine whose time of 9.97 seconds run on 16 July last year in Poland all but booked his ticket to Paris.
“I qualified for Olympics last year already and having that weight off my shoulders makes it easier for us to plan our season gearing up to the Olympics,” he explained. “I don’t need to stress about racing and getting my Q for the Games.”
Other track athletes who have ‘the Q’ are Luxolo Adams in the 200m, world record-holder Wayde van Niekerk and Zakithi Nene (400m), Tshepo Tshite (1500m0, Adriaan Wildschutt (5000m) and Marioné Fourie (100m hurdles).
Qualification for Paris is not only attained by achieving entry standards, however – with an additional 50 per cent of qualifiers being decided via world rankings. Taking that into account, 10 more athletes (along with the men’s 4x100m relay team) could be added to the list eligible for selection if they maintain their current rankings by the cutoff date of 7 July for track and field and 12 May for the marathon.
With several months still to achieve both entry standards and work their way up the world rankings, even more could be added, with a limit of three per country per event.
Speaking about the composition of the team, Simbine reckoned: “Team SA is going through a transition. There are younger athletes that are coming into the sport and I’m hoping they take the opportunity with both hands and come into the space with maturity and hunger to commit and do great things.”
“I’m looking forward to the guys qualifying and believing that they can compete against the world.”
