South Africa’s sprinting revolution and track and field’s general resurgence is running the risk of being discredited due to dubious electronic timing during this week’s Speed Series meeting in Bloemfontein.
It may sound alarmist, but Athletics SA’s (ASA) attitude of accepting results willy-nilly despite clear discrepancies in the times makes a mockery of a nation supposedly emerging as an international giant.
Three national records, including the South African men’s 110m hurdles and the Botswana and Malaysian women’s 100m marks, were improved on the day.
Miraculously, more than 15 personal best times were posted on the day, while some athletes performed way beyond their ability. Yet ASA president Aleck Skhosana saw no reason to question the results.
Ruan de Vries, who supposedly broke the SA 110m record with a time of 13.23 seconds, chopping 0.36 off his personal best four days after posting a season’s best 13.75.
Before the Bloemfontein race, De Vries had dipped below 13.60 once in his career, while second-placed Junior Mkhatini improved his lifetime best by almost three-quarters of a second.
The men’s 100m B-race produced an even greater surprise on the night when three unheralded sprinters posted times that would have earned them Rio Olympic qualification spots.
None of the three athletes have gone faster than 10.40, but the winner, Le Roux van Tonder, clocked 10.09, which would make him the ninth-fastest South African to date.
You would have to tumble down the rabbit hole to find a performance like that where an athlete knocks almost half-a-second off his PB and the national federation do not find it suspicious.
When Skhosana was asked whether the times would be investigated, he said there was no reason to question the veracity of the results.
Instead of admitting something was amiss, Skhosana claimed these performances were all part of the country’s sprinting boom.
On social media, some of the country’s Olympians joked about the times in Bloemfontein, ruing their chances of setting national records.
Questioning the times is in no way an attempt to discredit athletes who have been placed in a precarious position by an administration unwilling to accept blame.
Mistakes happen and the federation or the local organisers would have been excused if they had announced an investigation into the results before making it official.
Denying there is any fault with the electronic timing system could result in the international athletics community questioning legitimate times run at local meetings.
Respected international athletics statistics website, Tilastopoja, has results from the meet listed as “doubtful timing”.
To add insult to injury, the electronic system did not register a time in the men’s race that saw junior sensation Gift Leotlela claim a shock victory over Olympic gold medallist Wayde van Niekerk.
Leotlela was given a hand-timed 10.00, which could easily have been a new South African junior record.
While there is no reason to be suspicious of timing systems elsewhere in the country, the Bloemfontein track has been notorious in this department. At last year’s South African Open Championships also in Bloemfontein, the timing system caused embarrassment.
It incorrectly signalled Olympic champion Van Niekerk clocked 43.88, which would have been the fastest ever set in a first-round heat before the time was later amended to 44.11.
These well-publicised timing flops will have the world wondering whether South Africa is truly a force to be reckoned with, or if it is merely a faux sprinting revolution.