2. South Africa is Africa’s emerging Track and Field powerhouse
Africa’s importance in global Athletics cannot be over-emphasized. The continent has made a transition from just being known to dominate the middle and long distance events, to making her presence felt in the sprints and field events.
This was proven in 2015 when Kenya, against all odds, was crowned the best Athletics nation in the world after topping the medals table with 7 Gold, 6 Silver and 3 Bronze medals, over superpowers such as Jamaica and USA, at the World Championships in Beijing, thereby becoming the first African nation to achieve this feat.
While 2015 belonged to Kenya, South Africa dominated the continent in 2016. The country began its astonishing year at the African Championships on home soil, topping the medals table over tournaments favourites, Kenya and Nigeria.
This was accompanied by athletes such as Wayde Van Niekerk, Caster Semenya, Sunette Viljoen and Luvo Manyonga producing some of the finest performances in the course of the year, including the Olympics.
Van Niekerk broke the 400m World Record (WR), Semenya set an 800m National Record (NR) of 1:55.28, both en-route victories in Rio, while Viljoen and Manyonga won Silver medals in the Javelin Throw and Long Jump events respectively.
Worthy of note is the fact that both Van Nierkerk and Semenya ended the season as world leaders in their events, while Manyonga finished as No.2 on the world rankings. Interestingly, all three athletes are being trained in their country.
