13th African Games | Team SA’s medals breakdown after Super Saturday

By GARY LEMKE in Accra

We knew the gold rush would come and it duly did. Team SA started Saturday at the 13th African Games with five medals to date – all bronze. By the time they switched off the lights at the athletes village that tally had swelled to 13. That left them second on the overall medals table, behind Egypt.

Eight medals came the way of Team SA, and five of them were gold, two silver and one bronze. The day started with Haylee Preen taking gold in the women’s cycling road race.

“It was an amazing race and my teammates were amazing,” said Preen, Team SA’s first gold medallist at these Games. “We worked together as a team the whole day. When there was 9km to go there was a corner and when the riders slowed down I decided to go for it and rode into a headwind for that final stretch. I would have preferred a longer and harder race, as this was less than 100km and it was quite flat. The riders then didn’t split up, so it became more tactical,” she said.

She had opened the door. The swimmers, as they so often do, came to the party and chipped in with seven medals on the night of finals, four of them gold. One of them, Catherine van Rensburg, set a new African Games record when she outclassed her rivals to take the sapping 1500m freestyle gold in 16min 47.61sec (pictured).

Throughout she kept a smooth stroke and dominated, stretching further and further ahead the longer the race went.

Two swimmers picked up two gold medals, the freestyle sprinters Caitlin de Lange and Clayton Jimmie. Apart from winning the 100m, they combined to sign off the night to help win the mixed team 4x100m mixed relay. Jimmie took to the water for the final leg in third position, but quickly made up the distance on the countries who had sent out women in that last 100m.

De Lange had gone into the final as favourite, after qualifying quickest in the heats. She was made to work hard down the home stretch but just managed to touch first and claim gold in 55.53, which was just 0.02sec shy of her morning heats swim.

Jimmie himself had won his heat in 50.86, which left him second fastest into the evening session. However, he turned on the turbo right from the blocks, turned first and came home to touch in a faster 49.29.

Silver medals were secured by Matthew Caldwell in the men’s 800m freestyle, and Leigh McMorran in the women’s 200m butterfly. Just for good measure, Liam Vehbi, sporting a new look hairstyle following his initiation into the swim team earlier in the day, claimed bronze in the men’s 200m butterfly.

Team SA’s medals breakdown heading into Sunday:

GOLD (5)
Haylee Preen (cycling, women’s road race)
Clayton Jimmie (swimming, men’s 100m freestyle)
Caitlyn de Lange (swimming, women’s 100m freestyle)
Catherine van Rensburg (swimming, women’s 1500m freestyle)
Team SA 4x100m freestyle (swimming)

SILVER (2)
Matthew Caldwell (swimming, men’s 800m freestyle)
Leigh McMorran (swimming, women’s 200m butterfly)

BRONZE (5)
Liam Vehbi (swimming, men’s 200m butterfly)
Jessie Sim (karate, men’s individual kata)
Maxine Willemse (karate, women’s individual kata)
Marinda Roetz (karate, women’s kumite -50kg)
Team SA (karate, men’s team kata)
Team SA (table tennis, women’s team)

MEDALS BY CODE
7 Swimming
4 Karate
1 Cycling
1 Table tennis

Photos by Roger Sedres in Accra