South African 400m hurdles champion LJ van Zyl, defeated France's Naman Keita at the Primo Nebiolo Memorial IAAF Grand Prix 11 in Turin, Italy, on Friday night.
The 19-year-old former World Junior gold medallist recorded one of HIS best international wins as a senior when he beat last year's Olympic bronze medal winner in a close finish.
He was the pick of the South Africans ahead of world high jump champion, Jacques Freitag, who could only manage a third place with a jump of 2,23m.
Van Zyl's victory was his second this week and followed on last Sunday's meeting in Hengelo where when he just managed to pip Ian Weakley of Jamaica by 0,02 sec at the tape. His time of 48,96 sec was his best since arriving in Europe and also included another victory against his teammate to Helsinki, Llewellyn Herbert, who finished third in 49,45 sec. Keita's time was 49,02 sec.
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Surita Febbraio, SA champion in the 400m hurdles who has not been competing for some time, started her international campaign of 2005 on a positive note when she finished second against the American star, Sandra Glover, in a time of 55,35 sec.
It was her second best time of the year and will do her confidence a lot of good. Glover's time was 54,40 sec while Andrea Blackett of Barbados finished third in 56,08 sec.
Freitag, the world leader of the year with a career best of 2,38m, had been doing extremely well in training sessions before his departure for Italy. Things did not go his way though and he had to bow out before Andrey Sokolovskiy of Ukraine and Italy's own Nicola Ciote succeeded with clearances of 2,30 and 2,26m respectively.
The SA record holder in the 110m hurdles, Shaun Bownes, struggled once again and had to settle for fifth place in a time of 13,88 sec. behind the winner, Matheus Inocencio of Brazil who impressed with a time of 13,46 sec. - Sapa
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