African athletes shine on track, in pool at Rhine-Ruhr Universiade
ESSEN, Germany, July 27 (Xinhua) -- African athletes delivered strong performances in track and swimming at the Rhine-Ruhr World University Games, which concluded on Sunday.
South Africa finished with 10 medals in athletics - four golds, two silvers and four bronzes - placing fourth in the sport's medal standings.
South African sprinters Bayanda Walaza and Lythe Pillay swept the men's 100m, 200m and 400m titles, meeting expectations heading into the Games.
Walaza, a 19-year-old Olympian for Paris 2024 and world junior champion, won the 100m in 10.16 seconds, narrowly ahead of Thailand's Puripol Boonson (10.22), whom he also beat at last year's World Athletics U20 Championships in Peru.
In the 200m, Walaza clocked 20.63 seconds from lane seven, edging Spain's Adria Alfonso Medero (20.70).
"It's wonderful to say that I'm the fastest in all of the universities around the world. It's a great honor to be here and to win this," Walaza said after his 200m victory.
Earlier this year, Walaza became the ninth South African to run under 10 seconds in the 100m. He set a personal best of 9.94 seconds in Zagreb in May and a national junior record of 20.08 seconds in the 200m in March.
"I arrived in Germany with not a lot of training under my belt, but I quickly convinced myself that I am a warrior and a fighter," he added.
Pillay, the 2022 U20 world champion in the 400m and a member of South Africa's gold medal-winning 4x400m relay team at the World Athletics Relays, claimed the 400m title with a season-best 44.84 seconds. He also took silver in the mixed 4x400m relay.
Mthi Mthimkulu contributed two more silvers for South Africa in the men's 4x100m and mixed 4x400m relays.
Kenya earned three track medals. Brian Musau won the men's 10,000m in a season-best 28:42.39. Sarah Wanjiru Njeri took silver in the women's 10,000m with a personal best of 31:41.80, and Collins Kiprotich earned bronze in the men's 5,000m.
In swimming, Pieter Coetze captured two gold medals in the men's 50m and 100m backstroke and added a silver in the 100m freestyle.
Olivia Nel won four bronze medals in the women's 50m freestyle, 50m backstroke, and in both the mixed 4x100m freestyle and medley relays.
Guy Brooks and Ruard Van Renen each took home two bronzes from the same mixed relays.
In tennis, Angella Okutoyi and Kael Shah made history for Kenya by winning silver in mixed doubles - the country's first medal in tennis at the university level - despite a 6-3, 6-3 loss to Japan's Natsuki Yoshimoto and Jay Dylan Hara Friend in the final. Okutoyi also secured a bronze in the women's team event.
Okutoyi became the first Kenyan to win a junior Grand Slam title in 2022, partnering Rose Marie Nijkamp of the Netherlands to win the Wimbledon girls' doubles. In 2023, she won the African Games women's singles title and became Kenya's first singles champion on the ITF World Tennis Tour by winning the W15 Monastir event. ■