Rio 2016 - Team SA Wrap - One throw does it all
Sunette Viljoen's performance in the women's javelin qualifiers was the light of the night on day five of the athletics at the Rio Olympics, when she came, she conquered, and then went for recovery.
Viljoen has been South Africa's leading Javelin thrower since her debut to world championship in Paris in 2003, but has failed to make the Olympic finals in Athens, or Beijing, and ended London with a 4th place.
That year she had considerable pressure having improved her personal best to 69.35m in the Diamond League in New York only a few weeks before.
On Tuesday night it was a relaxed and confident Viljoen who spoke after qualifying with a one shot 63.54metre throw.
With the automatic qualifier set at 63.00 metres she and Belarus's Tatsiana Khaladovich, who had a first round 63.78, left the competition area and commenced their recovery for Thursday Night's final (02:10 Friday RSA)
"Its nice to go into the final without any pressure. I threw what I needed but I'm not heading the list," said the 32 year old, " There is no clear favourite this year, but there are a number of good athletes here so it's an open competition, which is good."
Croation Sara Kolak took the full three attempts to throw 64.30m which was the leading throw for the group A, and only HuiHui Lyu of China added her name to the list of four who had automatic qualifiers from the early group.
World record holder Barbora Spotakova, who may not have been reaching the 72.28m of eight years ago, threw 64.65, while Poland's Maria Andrejcyk set a national record with her 67.11 to top her group and have the lead for the night.
Germany's Christina Obergfoll is another who has topped 70m in her career but settled for a second round 62.18 which gave her one of the four places that went to sub qualifying mark throwers.
There is no shortage of good throwers, but no clear favourite and that's how Viljoen likes it.
Field events are fickle. All it takes is one throw, and it can come from any one of the six trials, so thee is definitely a medal in the offing on Thursday night and Viljoen's progression from her first Olympics in 2004,
where she was 35th, to Beijing (33rd) to London (4th) means she has to go one, or three better.
The remainder of the evening was disappointing, but not without best effort from the athletes.
Having sneeked into the 110m hurdle semi final as the last of the fastest losers, Antonio Alkani did well to finish seventh out of the nine athlete semi with 13.55.
The nine athletes resulted from the re-run of the first two heats due to Monday night's downpour, that postponed all the track and field for around an hour.
Wenda Nel finished fifth in her semi of the 400m hurdles with a 55.83 compared to Ashley Spencer's 54.87 win and a final fastest loser in 54.99.
The stalwart of hurdling, LJ van Zyl, also battled hard over the final 60m of the men's hurdles and just could not hold off the charge, finishing fourth in 49.00, in the semi won by Jamaican Annset Whyte in 48.32.
"I went out hard, because I knew they would also go hard," said the 31 year old TUKS athlete. "I was still there off the bend and through to nine, but then the power wasn't there to push after the final hurdle."
Van Zyl appeared to have the edge on Whyte off the bend but on the run in three led by Javier Culson swamped the South African in that 50 metres.
"It's disappointing I felt I could have made the final, but just didn't have the legs at the end. It's the risk of going out hard, but I will be back for one more Worlds (London 2017), and another Commonwealth in Gold coast," continued van Zyl who made his major debut in Helsinki in 2005.
Lynique Prinsloo was the other casualty of the night, opening her account with a 5.96m leap in the long jump where the qualifying target was 6.75m.
Her second attempt put her out well over the 6 metre, but with her foot well over the board it was red-flagged. The rhythm seemed to come with the third attempt where she recorded 6.1metres, but that was 43cm short of the requirement to make the top 12.
Not the best of days at the office for Team South Africa, but there's hope that Viljoen can make her point on Thursday, and Elroy Galant and Caster Semenya roll into action on Wednesday in the 5000m and 800m respectively. Down but by no means dead in athletics, and Bridgitte Hartley commences the defense of her 500m Canoe Sprint Bronze medal from London (14.38 RSA) and the lady Golfers, Ashleigh Simon and Paula Reto move into round one.(12:30 RSA).