Dambile - SA’s last hope for a medal - TimesLIVE
Sinesipho Dambile steps onto the track in Budapest today as South Africa’s last chance of making the podium at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championships.
Gift Leotlela and Akani Simbine, who ended fifth and seventh at last year’s world championships, ended sixth and eighth in the 100m final last night.
American Kenny Bednarek stunned Jamaica’s world champion, Oblique Seville, to take the 100m crown, crossing the line in 9.85sec. Seville was second in 9.90 with Ronnie Baker of the US third in 9.93.
Nigeria’s Kayinsola Ajayi was the quickest of the four Africans in the field, finishing fourth in 9.93.
Both Leotlela and Simbine had squeaked into the final by finishing fourth in their respective semifinals earlier in the evening.
Leotlela, who had ended fourth at the Commonwealth Games, ousted Australia’s silver medallist in Glasgow, Lachlan Kennedy, by two-hundredths of a second, in the first heat.
Simbine pushed out Commonwealth Games champion Emmanuel Eseme of Cameroon by six-hundredths.
Dambile, who finished second behind Bednarek in the 200m at the Diamond League Final last weekend, is seeded second behind the American in Hungary too, although he also has to deal with Botswana’s Olympic champion, Letsile Tebogo.
A top-three finish will cap a great season in which Dambile has lowered his personal best to 19.74, won a race on the Diamond League circuit and established himself as the country’s second-most prolific sub-performing sprinter.
To date Simbine has delivered the most sub-performances in a season to date — sub-10 seconds for the 100m, sub-20 for the 200m and sub-44 for the 400m — with nine. In 2017 he dipped under 10 on eight occasions and under 20 once.
Dambile is currently on seven sub-20s, one of which was done with an illegal tailwind.
Wayde van Niekerk did six in 2017 (three sub-44s, two sub-20s and one sub-10), and Leotlela did five legal sub-10s last year and clocked his sixth for 2026 in last night’s final.
In other action, Botswana’s world champion Collen Kebanitshipi finished his international season unbeaten, winning the 400m in a 43.39 national record. He led from the start but was unable to beat the 43.38 world lead held by US-based Samuel Ogazi of Nigeria.
Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan took the women’s javelin with a 68.92m national record, beating 18-year-old favourite Ziyi Yan of China with 68.05.
Colombia’s Flor Hurtado was third with 64.84.
If Olympic silver medallist Jo-Ane du Plessis had been fit enough to compete, she’d have needed a personal best to make the top three.
Likewise. the women’s 800m was won by Audrey Werro of Switzerland in 1min 55.88sec, ahead of British Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson (1:56.26) and Femke Broeders-Bol of the Netherlands (1:56.74).
Prudence Sekgodiso, who didn’t advance past the semifinals on Friday, has a 1:56.83 best.
But Luvo Manyonga’s 8.35m season’s best would have earned him a share of first place in the men’s long jump last night. The 35-year-old, who has battled drug addiction on and off since 2011, didn’t qualify for the showpiece.
