Luke van der Merwe (Grade 11), of Paul Roos Gymnasium (PRG) won the Boys 17 high jump at the Curro Podium Athletics, held at the Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria on Saturday 18 February.
Beating 33 other high jumpers, he cleared 2 m for the second time in a week, the last at the Prestige Athletics on Tuesday 14 February as well. This puts Van der Merwe at the top of the rankings for his age group and makes him a serious medal contender for both the ASA Age Group Championships (23-25 March at the Msunduzi Athletics Stadium, Pietermaritzburg) and the SA Schools Athletics Championship (25 April, Germiston).
His teammate Harrison Gibson jumped 1,85 m and ended in the eighth position. Other highlights on the day saw Wayden Julies record personal bests for the 200 m in 23,01 seconds (22nd) and the 400 m in 50.91 seconds (12th). Musahdiq Cornelson also ran a blistering 200 m with a time of 23.36 seconds with Kyle Bonner improving his personal best in both the long and triple jump, going 6,16 m and 11,50 m on the day.
Thomas Coetsee and Josh Venter both did well in the shotput and discus with Thomas ending 20th in the shotput and Josh ending 19th in the discus.
AJ Krynauw ran a 59.58 in the 400 m hurdles to finish 11th, with a 15.62 in the 110 m hurdles, earning him 12th place. Jordan Steenkamp ran a superb 14.95 seconds on the way to finishing 10th in the 110 m hurdles. Barthelemy Bena-Ntumba had the privilege of running in one of the 100 m heats scheduled later in the day and his time of 11.21 was just outside of his PB and earned him a 17th place for the day.
The middle-distance trio of Gerard Bekker, Mark Lester and Christopher Steyn also did well. Gerard ran a 54:30 in the 400 m and finished in 10th position with his 800 m time of 2:09.37 placing him at number 8 for the day. Mark ran 2:10.81 for the 800 m, which saw him earn the 10th place and 4:38.23 for the 1 500 m, which saw him come in at 20th. Christopher continued the strong showing with a 2:01.27 in his 800 m race for 10th place and a 04:12.64 for his 1 500 m race to finish 14th.
The team finished in 17th position on the day and showed that the PRG athletes can hold their own on the national stage.
