Van Zyl hits back as Wittstock does double in Johannesburg

Commonwealth champion LJ van Zyl bounced back from the disappointment of the South African championships last weekend by beating national champion Wouter le Roux at the 4th Yellow Pages Series athletics meeting in Johannesburg.

In Durban on Sunday, Van Zyl was disqualified after a false start from the men's 400m hurdles and was forced to watch from the sidelines as Le Roux defended his national title.

Three days later, he made no mistakes, setting a season's best time of 49.45secs to beat Le Roux by 0.63secs and restamping his authority as South Africa's best one-lap hurdler.

Few others took advantage of the cool, overcast conditions, however, with the nation's top athletes clearly still recovering from the weekend.

One-lap specialist Estie Wittstock dropped down in distance to snatch the short sprint double.

Wittstock won the 100 metres in 11.75secs, with Carina Horn second in 11.95secs and India's Srabani Nanda third. And 90 minutes later, Wittstock added a 200m victory in 23.66secs, with Namibian Tjipekapora Herunga second in 24.14secs.

National champions Simon Magakwe (10.35secs) and Thuso Mpuang (20.82) won the men's sprints.

Rikenette Steenkamp, 17, improved her personal best in the women's 100m hurdles, clocking 13.61secs and falling only 0.13secs shy of the Commonwealth Games qualifying standard.

SA champion Wenda Theron missed the qualifying mark by 0,39sec in the women's 400m hurdles with a season's best of 57.06secs.

Cindy Peters produced the best jump of her life in the women's triple jump, leaping 12.91metres to beat national champion Patience Ntshingila by one centimetre.

The Yellow Pages Series now moves on to the fifth meeting in Stellenbosch on March 30 before the final meeting in Germiston on April 6.

- SAPA