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Johannesburg - South African athletes Anaso Jobodwana, Wenda Nel and LJ van Zyl produced silver-medal winning performances in their respective events at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland on Thursday evening.
Coming through the bend, South African 200m record holder Jobodwana stepped up a gear in the half-lap sprint to cross the line in second place behind Britain’s Zharnel Hughes with a time of 20.21 seconds.
Hughes clocked a personal best time of 20.13s with Isiah Young of the United States finishing in third place with 20.24s.
The South African speedster's second place launched him to the top of the Diamond League 200m standings with the six points he has accumulated so far this season.
Jobodwana has been in sensational form this season after improving the national 200m record twice in May and threatening to break through the 20-second barrier.
The Olympic finalist broke the record in the Cayman Islands in early May when he posted a time of 20.06s to see off Morne Nagel’s previous mark of 20.11s from 2002.
Two weeks later he improved on his time at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene, United States clocking 20.04s to get close to a sub-20 second race.
Nel demonstrated on Thursday that she had no reason to fear her more esteemed competitors.
The 26-year-old produced a determined run as she pushed on coming through the final bend to comfortably hold on to second place clocking 55.78s.
Danish athlete Sara Petersen beat her to the line posting a time of 55.01s as Lauren Wells of Australia took third in 56.26s.
Nel has been a model of consistency producing low 55-second races this season with a personal best of 54.37s she clocked at the IAAF World Challenge in Beijing in May.
South African 400m hurdles record holder Van Zyl surged towards the end of the race from the outside lane to run his second sub-49 second race of the season.
The United States’ Bershawn Jackson claimed first place in a time of 48.71s with Van Zyl posting a time of 48.92s as Denis Kudryavtsev of Russia crossed the line third in 49.01s.
This was Van Zyl’s second Diamond League silver medal after his 48.78s run at the New York meet last month.
Meanwhile, distance runner Elroy Gelant finished in 17th place in the men’s 5000m with a time 14:04.71.
