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Johannesburg - Luvo Manyonga's gold medal in the long jump and a bronze from Tazmin Brits in the javelin have created a rosy future for track and field in SA, as the curtain came down on Team SA's campaign at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Moncton, Canada on Saturday.
Boland's Manyonga will take home with him fond memories of his last and winning leap of 7.99 metres on Wednesday, while 30 minutes earlier, Potchefstroom-based Brits threw the javelin to the 54.55 metres mark to finish third overall.
Luck certainly did not travel with Team SA to Moncton, and speedster Wayde van Niekerk deserved even better than his fine performance.
Free State sprinter Van Niekerk went to Moncton with hopes and dreams and left as the fourth fastest sprinter in the world over 200 metres -improving on his time in the heats, semi-finals and final to finish on 21.02.
Powerful Western Province javelin athlete Rocco van Rooyen will also make the trip home richer in experience having produced a career best effort of 74.13 metres in the final to place 6th.
Justine Palframan's 200 metres time of 24.09 in the semi-finals showed definite potential as the youngest member of Team SA at just 16 years is almost certain to progress and mature in time for the 2012 IAAF World Junior Championships in Spain.
The KwaZulu Natal athlete, who is also a provincial level schools swimmer, certainly did not look out of her depth against more experienced opponents in the sprints.
Free State's Gideon Trotter and University of Johannesburg's Waide Jooste, who made the semi-finals of the 100 metres, plus Stellenbosch's Shaun de Jager and Tshwane's Jacques de Swardt who made the last 16 in the 400 metres, will also grow to the next level based on lessons learnt in Moncton.
On Saturday, Team SA's hopes of a place in the final of the 4 x 400 metres relay faded away as de Jager, Pieter Marx, Le Roux Hamman and de Swardt produced a fifth placed effort of 3 min 12.58 secs in their heat.
In the morning session, Kobus Moolman was eliminated from the semi-finals of the 110 metres hurdles, finishing in 14.30.
By the end of Saturday's action, Team SA were lying in a credible 13th place on the medal rankings out of the 170 participating countries.
