The two-time Team SA Olympian (2016 and 2020) Gift Leotlela rolled back the years to win the men’s 100m title at the South African Senior Track and Field Championships in Potchefstroom on Thursday, beating the 2024 4x100m silver medallist Bayanda Walaza in a thrilling race.
Walaza had run the fastest wind-legal time in the semi-finals to cross the line first in the second heat, coming home a full two-tenths clear of Karabo Letebele. But then his Athletics Gauteng North teammate Leotlela made the most of a strong +2.6m/s tailwind in the third semi-final heat to blitz to a 9.95, finishing as the top qualifier for the final.
In the final, Leotlela recovered from a sluggish start to catch the flying Walaza on the line, his time being rounded down to a 9.99sec, with the teenager taking silver in 10.00. Paris 2024 semi-finalist Benjamin Richardson finished third.
“There were two things missing from my list of achievements before today,” a happy Leotlela said afterwards. “The one was a senior national title and the other was a World Championships qualifying time (10.00). I did both!” As national champion and a qualifier, he will definitely be on the plane to the World Championships in Tokyo later this year, as will Walaza who was qualifying for the global showpiece for a second time.
Richardson, who agonisingly missed out on the Paris final by just 0.02 seconds having competed in the French capital with an injury, was earlier comfortably the fastest qualifier from the morning heats.
His 10.08 to win heat 2 was a full tenth of a second faster than the next-best time, run by Walaza in the opening heat of the morning.
Walaza’s 10.18 was good enough to win that first heat, while his Paris 2024 relay teammate Bradley Nkoana took heat 5 in 10.24 seconds. Nkoana would later miss out on the final as he finished third in his semi-final behind Walaza, but the other two semi-final heats had strong tailwinds which pushed other athletes ahead of him on time.
Leotlela had burst onto the international scene as a teenager, representing Team South Africa at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the men’s 200m at just 18=years-old. His early entry into the elite sprinting ranks showcased not only natural talent but a calm composure rare for his age.
Leotlela first broke the 10-second barrier in 2021 with a time of 9.94 seconds, placing him among the fastest South Africans in history.
Meanwhile, Wayde van Niekerk will not run at this week’s Championships, his agent Peet van Zyl confirmed.