Long Distance Ladies Battle

The fourth Yellow Pages Ultimate Athletics in Oudtshoorn over the weekend showed that athletics is alive and healthy in South Africa.

The times were not exceptional, but this was expected as the heat took its toll and the sprinters ran into winds of up to 2m/s in the home straight.

Many lamented the conditions affect on the final results but what the conditions did provide an appreciative crowd in Oudtshoorn with some really spectacular racing.

This was not about times, but rather about who wins. The end result is that the rest of the Yellow Pages Ultimate Athletics Season is moving towards a climatic showdown in a number of events.

After the scintillating finishing displays by Lebogang Phalula, no-one doubted that she would dominate the 800m. Yet Rene Kalmer continues to improve with every race, and in the 800m she showed that she is coming back into the shape that saw her completely dominate middle distance running in South Africa.

Many athletics commentators have been lamenting the lack of gutsy hard racing in the ladies middle distances, but Lebogana Phalula and Rene Kalmer are offering just that.

In Port Elizabeth Phalula seemed to have won the 1500m with ease, but Kalmer showed true grit by fighting all the way to the line. The two protagonists again had a hard battle in Oudtshoorn when Kalmer dropped down to the 800m to race Phalula.

Kalmer is perhaps better suited to the 1500m and her dropping down to the 800m means she knows that Lebogang is her greatest threat, and that she needs to up her speed if he want to beat her.

In an incredible heat Lebogang Phalula and Rene Kalmer traded blows like two punch drunk boxers, Kalmer sitting on the heals of Phalula as if they were tied together by an invisible cord.

It was only in the final metres that Phulala was able to pull away from Kalmer; it needed a season’s best though for that to happen. At the end of the race the athletes lay on the track like wounded shoulders on a battlefield, such was the intensity of the racing.

All of which indicates that the next two Yellow Pages Ultimate Athletics Meetings should provide the best action seen on the track in long, long time.