Wayde van Niekerk, Akani Simbine, and Ruswahl Samaai will compete in the South African senior track and field championships.
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The South African athletics season will officially begin with the the national championships in Potchefstroom from March 30 to April 1, 2023. The championships, held over three days in the university town 120 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg, are back. Some of the biggest international stars from the nation, such as Wayde van Niekerk, Akani Simbine, and Ruswahl Samaai, will compete in the South African senior track and field championships. SuperSport will be broadcasting live coverage of the South African Athletics Championships
At the national championships, South Africa’s reigning athlete, Van Niekerk, will compete in his favorite 400-meter event for the first time since 2016. The Olympic champion and world record holder will be looking to win his fifth national title in the one-lap sprint event when he steps onto the track at the McArthur Stadium. When Van Niekerk squares off against two Young Turks who are eager to defeat the two-time world champion, Zakithi Nene and Lythe Pillay, he can expect a hostile reception. Van Niekerk will use the competition as a springboard for the rest of his season, which might include an attempt to win back his world championship in Budapest in August.
He first won the national championship in 2015, and two-time Olympic finalist Akani Simbine has dominated the 100m. The sub-10-second machine from South Africa will return to the starting blocks in Potchefstroom with more than 30 times under 10 seconds, hoping to win his fifth national championship in the prestigious competition. After losing his titles from the African and Commonwealth Games to Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala, Simbine is planning a comeback in 2023. Omanyala also lowered the African record Simbine held the year before with a time of 9:77 seconds.
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Ruswahl Samaai, a former bronze medalist in the long jump at the world championships, is also seeking atonement for a disappointing 2022 campaign in which he failed to record a single jump of more than eight meters. In the absence of injured Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Jovan van Vuuren, Samaai might have an easier time winning his fourth national championship.
Brian Raats, who finished second in the high jump for the under-20 world championships in 2022, will go back to the venue where he set a personal record by clearing 2 points 26 meters. He will have a good chance to win his first senior title. Raats jumped 2.26 meters in Potchefstroom last year when he was only 18 years old. It was the best high jump performance ever by a South African. Winning silver at the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships in Colombia was undoubtedly a highlight. Along with winning silver at the senior championships, he was also the South African junior champion.
Zeney van der Walt, who earned bronze in the 400-meter hurdles at the Commonwealth Games, is expected to be one of the main attractions in the women’s events. The former world junior and youth champion dropped below 55 seconds last year for the first time. She will strive to maintain her upward trend to break the 53.072-second South African record and win more accolades.
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