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Johannesburg, Monday, 19 March 2007 - Athletics South Africa (ASA) has called for greater team effort from the members of the South African Cross Country team to the world champs in Mombassa, in Kenya. It will take a super fit, highly talented and very experienced athlete to try and steal a show on the Kenyans on their home ground or defeat arguably the greatest middle distance athlete ever, Kenenisa Bekele from Ethiopia.
The team leaves for Kenya on 22 March.
ASA has stuck with its policy of building athletes for the future, and selected a very young and large team, but one that has bundles of talent. Tshamone Setone is just out of the junior ranks but has already competed at the world junior track and field championships, the Commonwealth Games and the world junior cross country championships in 2005.
Setone showed huge talent in 2006 when he ran the fastest time by a South African, both junior and senior, for the year over the 3000m distance (8:00;08). A glance at this year’s results shows that both Setone and Boy Soke are running very much the same times. It will be up to the more experienced Soke to reign in the eagerness of Setone and try to get them to run as team as it is in just that area where South Africa has a chance of doing well. The first six runners across the line per country count towards the team event. The times of each athlete are added up and the lowest score wins.
Prize Money for the teams goes down to 6th place, and if the South African men’s team play their cards right, they could very well make it into the top 6.
Soke has represented South Africa at the Commonwealth Games, the African Championships, and the World Cross Country Championships, and is the World Student Games 5000m Champion of 2006; so it will be on his shoulders that rest the responsibility to carry the team. Soke also won the recent Southern Region Senior Cross Country Championships Title, a title that will give him immense confidence going into the World Championships.
Lusapho April may have only represented South Africa once, but he did so with aplomb in the 2006 World Road Race Championships, finishing best of the South Africans in the 20km. He is known for his cool head and has a liking for Cross Country, having won the South African Students Title two years running.
The junior girls team will have their work cut out for them against their more illustrious and experienced opponents from Africa, but if they keep a cool head, they too can come home with a good performance in the team event. The team of Praxedis Dim, Aleta Phiri, Selina Mofokeng, Helen Phenyane and Jane Tuge finished second in the team event at the recent Southern Region Cross Country Championships in the Junior Category.
Cross Country is so vital to the development of the middle and long distance runners that it is important for South Africa to send teams to the World Championships, irrespective of how much of a chance they have to medal. It is the experience that they bring back that will count for the future and the Junior Girls Team has oodles of talent. This experience will only make them stronger and better athletes.
66 IAAF Member Federations have confirmed their participation at the world championships which take place in Mombassa, Kenya, on 24 March 2007. The number of entries represents seven more countries than participated at the previous edition of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships which were held in Fukuoka, Japan, last April.
The final SA team is as follows: -
Senior Men
Boy Soke (Free State), Tshamano Setone (Central Gauteng), Mbongeni Ngxazozo (Gauteng North), Lusapho April (Border), Pule Hlabahlaba (Free State), Raphael Segodi (Central Gauteng)
Senior Women
Violet Raseboya (Central Gauteng)
Junior Girls
Praxedis Dim (Central Gauteng), Aleta Phiri (Central North West), Selina Mofokeng (Vaal Triangle), Helen Phenyane (Limpopo), Jane Tuge (Central North West).
Junior Boys
Dean Brummer (Gauteng North), Cansas Nhlapo (Mpumalanga), Zim Lesole (Free State), Xolisa Tyali (Transkei).
Team Management
Nandi Mokhele (Team Manager), Godfrey Hammers (Team Manager), Michael Seme (Coach), DB Prinsloo (Coach), Lindy Mahlangu (Physiotherapist), Lizette Breytenbach (Physiotherapist)
source ASA
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