Jo-Ane van Dyk delivered a surprise Olympic medal at Stade de France last night, taking the women’s javelin silver in a session the more fancied rivals failed to hit their straps.
Potchefstroom-based Van Dyk, a qualified dietician and an under-20 world championship runner-up in 2016, threw 63.93m on her third attempt to leapfrog into second place — and she was never dislodged.
Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan won gold on 65.8,0 with Nikola Ogrodnikova of Czechia, a previous European championship silver medallist, taking bronze with 63.68m, the shortest distance to win an Olympic bronze since 1972.
Van Dyk threw a 64.22m lifetime best in the qualifying round to book her spot in the final, where she flourished like the sunflower tattooed on her ribcage.
This was Team South Africa’s sixth medal in France, but it was a medal nobody expected, except for the few who knew her pedigree, and her coach, the incomparable Terseus Liebenberg.
He mentored Marius Corbett to world championship gold in 1997 and Sunette Viljoen to the 2016 Olympic silver, as well as world championship bronze medals in 2011 and 2015.
Van Dyk threw 63.93m on her third attempt to move into second behind Haruka on 65.80 and she was never challenged.
The men’s 4x400m team lowered the national record to 2min 58.12sec as they finished fifth in a race where the US beat Botswana for gold.
Wayde van Niekerk didn’t return for the line-up which remained unchanged from the morning heats with Gardeo Isaacs, Zakithi Nene, Lythe Pillay and Antonie Nortje.
Earlier, Brian Raats cleared 2.17m on his first high jump and crashed out at 2.22m
Golfer Ashleigh Buhai fought hard for a two-under-par 70 at Le Golf National to finish on three under overall, four shots off the podium. New Zealand’s Lydia Ko won the tournament by two strokes after carding a birdie on the final hole.
Buhai broke her little toe more than a month ago and played with a hole cut into her left shoe to give the digit space.
She had been in contention after an opening round of 68, but the 73 and 74 in the middle stages hurt her chances on a course that spurned any ambitions of shooting low.
Buhai started the round with a bogey on the par-four first, but hit back immediately with two straight birdies and a third at the par-four sixth.
A bogey five on 12 and birdie four on 14 saw her home in the black for the day.
Her teammate, Paula Reto, finally went around the course in level par 72 to finish on 11 over par.
Paddler Hamish Lovemore finished last in his K1 1,000m semifinal, but then bounced back to win the B final in 3min 27.94sec. That earned him an overall ranking of ninth in the world, which isn’t too shabby for someone who focused more on the marathon arena than sprints.
The 24-year-old and Andy Birkett, who was eliminated at the quarterfinal stage, will compete at the world marathon championships in Croatia next month.
There’s been talk of a 5,000m race being introduced at Los Angeles 2028 which would certainly play into the hands of competitors like Lovemore.
Steyn de Lange was comprehensively beaten by Givi Matcharashvili of Georgia, the two-time European champion and double world championship bronze medallist in his opening match.
The US-based actuarial science student, who grew up in Polokwane, scored two points, but the fight was stopped automatically when his opponent built up a 10-point advantage for a VSU1 — victory by superiority.
De Lange, the Commonwealth Games silver medallist at Birmingham 2022, seemed shellshocked after the defeat.
“I know I could have done a lot better, a lot of mistakes made. It’s still very fresh. I’ve got to process exactly what happened, go through it,” he said.
But De Lange returns for the bronze-medal repechage matches today, thanks to the Georgian advancing to the final, beating world No1 Magomedkhan Magomedov of Azerbaijan in the semifinal yesterday .
De Lange faces unranked Ukrainian Murazi Mchedlidze this morning.
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