Bright start, but Mokoka fades in London

20th Africa Senior Athletics Championship at Kingspark Atheletics Stadium, Durban, South Africa, on 22 June 2016 © Gerhard Duraan/BackpagePix

20th Africa Senior Athletics Championship at Kingspark Atheletics Stadium, Durban, South Africa, on 22 June 2016 © Gerhard Duraan/BackpagePix

Published Jul 23, 2016

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Carina Horn was quick in her heat, but things didn’t quite work out for her in the 100m final at the London Diamond League meeting on Saturday.

The South African record-holder made a good start to her day when she clocked 11.15 to end fourth in her heat, which was won by Ivorian flyer Marie-Josee Ta Lou in a new personal best of 10.96.

But it was enough for Horn to reach the final about an hour later, and the 27-year-old would’ve been hopeful of an even better time on a warm day in the British capital.

She had ended third in the last Diamond League event in Monaco on July 15 in 11.14 behind superstars such as Dafne Schippers and Veronica Campbell-Brown.

At the 2012 Olympic Stadium on Saturday, Horn was up against another strong field that featured Ta Lou, double Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica and Trinidad’s Michelle-Lee Ahye.

But Horn was unable to get going in the final, with Ta Lou repeated her effort from earlier in the day as she equalled her PB of 10.96 to score somewhat of an upset over Fraser-Pryce (11.06), who trailed Ahye (10.99) as well.

There were good returns for the other two South Africans who participated in the second day of the Anniversary Games, with LJ van Zyl and Stephen Mokoka building up to the Olympics in the 400m hurdles and 5 000m respectively.

Van Zyl was up against a stellar field in the one-lap obstacle course, with the likes of Americans Johnny Dutch and Kerron Clement, as well as Javier Culson of Puerto Rico in the line-up.

The experienced South African stayed within range of Dutch, who went out quickly in the first 200m, but Van Zyl turned on the heat to surge forward in the middle section of the race.

Clement, though, came almost from nowhere in the last 100m to push past Van Zyl, who ran out of steam a bit in the last 50m to end fourth in 48.92 – which is still a good time in the sub-49 seconds.

The 2009 world champion Clement won in a season’s best of 48.40, with Culson second in 48.63 and Turkey’s Yasmani Copello third in 48.70.

Mokoka is entered for the 10 000m in Rio, but told Independent Media this week that he needed some top competition before going to Brazil, which is why he decided to accept the invitation for the 5 000m in London.

The national champion in both long-distance events had an excellent first half of the race as he kept up with Britain’s Olympic champion Mo Farah and Kenyans Paul Koech and pacemakers Vincent Rono and Hillary Maiyo.

But Farah took charge with around two laps to go and sped away in brilliant fashion as he won by over 15 seconds in 12:59.29, with countryman Andrew Butchart second in 13:14.85 and American veteran Bernard Lagat third in 13:14.96.

Mokoka faded to ninth in 13:23.66, but he will be pleased with his performance as it was part of his preparation for the Rio Olympics.

The other South African in London was 400m hurdler Wenda Nel, who produced a new season’s best of 54.47 on Friday night to finish third behind American star Dalilah Muhammad (53.90) and Denmark’s Sara Petersen (54.33).

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