Cape Town - After much debate and head scratching, the Sport24 team have announced their Performers, Plonkers and Pictures of the month for August 2010.

Click HERE to cast your vote - and WIN!

Every month the Sport24 editorial team will announce nominations for a sportsperson or team (people who stole the limelight with a specific performance that month), a plonker (a team or person who has not covered themselves in glory) and a sports photo of the month (the one that makes you go "Ahhh"). You then get a chance to vote for the person, team and picture that best deserves the award...

So without further ado, then, the August nominations are...

PERFORMANCE:

Narrowing down the nominations for the August star of the month proved tricky with several candidates returning performances worthy of recognition.

Oscar Pistorius
The Blade Runner is still blazing! Double amputee Pistorius set a new world record over 400 metres (47.04 seconds) in his comfortable victory in the T44 category at the Aviva London Grand Prix meeting at Crystal Palace in mid-month. And he actually ran a faster time in the able-bodied race, where he finished a spirited seventh.

Francois Hougaard
Hougaard was a mullet on a mission this month: the promising Blue Bulls utility back produced successive livewire performances at scrumhalf for the Springboks, first in defeat to the All Blacks at Soweto but then in a man-of-the-match effort as the Boks bounced back against the Wallabies in Pretoria. He was dynamic and massively committed throughout – as evidenced by his huge, try-saving tackle on Adam Ashley-Cooper in the second half.

Pitso Mosimane
A very decent start indeed for the new Bafana Bafana head coach as his charges edged out highly-rated Ghana 1-0 in a friendly encounter at a buzzing FNB Stadium this month. Not only did South Africa commendably outplay the World Cup quarter-finalists, but the mastermind earned approving nods for his decision to sideline silky but lightweight Teko Modise.

Natalie du Toit
The Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability only underlined her superb credentials with an eight-medal haul (six gold) at the International Paralympic Committee’s Swimming World Championships in Eindhoven, Holland. She rounded off the event rather fittingly by dominating the 5km open-water swim. There were just three more silver medals for South Africa, by male swimmers.

Caster Semenya
The controversial 19-year-old athlete from Limpopo – cleared to run again after an 11-month sidelining for gender tests -- followed up her successive, low-key comeback wins in Finland in July by reaching even more encouraging levels of performance in August, dipping back under the 2:00 mark to clinch the 800m event at the ISTAF meet in Berlin. It was the same track where she had triumphed at the 2009 World Championships.

PLONKERS:

And in the not so serious plonker category... Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the biggest plonker of them all?

Peter de Villiers
Foot-in-mouth ailments continued to stalk the slightly embattled Springbok coach during the month. Not only did his charges’ Tri-Nations woes continue against the All Blacks at Soweto, but he made statements implying that assistant Gary Gold was only the third best defence coach in the country and then blasted Western Province for their reluctance to release their own defensive guru Jacques Nienaber to the Bok cause.

SA Women's RWC team
The term “shocker” gets bandied about a little more easily in sport than it deserves to. But sometimes it is deeply apt: like when you have the unfortunate experience of watching the Bok women in action at the Rugby World Cup! Their Pool A effort included lamentable 55-3 and 62-0 hammerings at the hands of New Zealand and Australia respectively, and they looked streets off the pace fitness-wise. One wag on SuperRugby suggested a certain Bok forward “had her boep around her knees” …

Dawid Britz
Remember him? The chunky former Free State and WP hooker, who has also served a lengthy steroids ban, was in hot water again when he turned out for Durbanville-Bellville’s second team in a club match against Stellenbosch. He was charged with slapping Maties coach (and former Boland Currie Cup legend) Beau Schoeman across the ear with an open hand, damaging an eardrum. Phew, some mums have ‘em, eh?

Benni McCarthy
The beefy West Ham striker continued to battle with weight-loss issues – er, lack of weight loss, that is – this month. His Body Mass Index was still considered too high as the season began, so he was threatened with losing a week’s wages, while manager Avram Grant revealed that he felt Benni was capable only of “13 minutes” in a match! Hmm, some contribution to the cause …

Frans Steyn/SARU
This matter earns the nod here simply because it became so lengthy and tiresome. In a nutshell, there was all sorts of commotion involving the Bok fullback, his French club Racing Metro, SARU, his agent Gerrie Swart and also national coach Peter de Villiers over his clearance to represent the Boks. It was like a cheap theatre farce, and only aggravated when the supposedly “injured” player had a game for the French outfit before returning to the Bok No 15 jersey (with limited success) against Australia at Loftus.

PHOTOS:

In a bid to deservedly salute the photographers doing the hard graft on the sidelines. Sport24 have put together a gallery of the "Best of the Best" pictures of the month of August. They're guaranteed to leave you speechless. Click HERE to view our selection of the: Best of the best pictures

Reader voting

Readers monthly votes will decide the 12 finalists in each category, and it is from those 12 finalists that Sport24 will decide their Star, Plonker and Picture of the Year in December.