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Cape Town - South Africa won just one medal on day four of the IPC Athletics World Championships in London on Monday - and fittingly, it went to one of the nation’s finest athletes, Ilse Hayes.
According to the SASCOC website, Hayes, 31, pictured alongside with long-time coach Suzanne Ferreira, brought down the curtain on a long and decorated career with silver in the T13 100m final.
That medal now sits along with the silver she won in the 200m at the weekend.
It also brings to six the rainbow nation’s tally - five silvers and a bronze - with the first gold still to be landed.
It was a season’s best 12.17 for Hayes as the Stellenbosch-based athlete ended second to Leilia Adzhametova, just as she did in the 200m final.
Victory margin was 0.17 as the Ukraine athlete set a new championships record.
In the two other finals of the night, Cape Town’s Mpumelelo Mhlango ended fourth in T44 long jump final with a season’s best 6.95m as Germany’s Markus Rehm won with a leap of 8.00m while Bloemfontein’s Louzanne Coetzee returned a personal best of 4:52.67 to end one spot off the podium in the T11 1 500m final.
Race winner was Poland’s Joanna Mazur in 4:50.95 with less than two seconds separating first and fifth places.
In Monday's heat action all bar one South African went through to the final.
That unlucky one was Rio Paralympics medallist Ntando Mahlangu who failed to go through in the T42 100m event due to a broken blade.
But double Paralympic gold medallist Charl du Toit is through in the T37 200m, courtesy of a 24.51 heat where he’s joined by Ruhan van Rooyen (25.25).
And another Rio medallist, Dyan Buis, is through over the same distance, but in the T38 class with a season’s best 23.00.
And he’ll have London Paralympics medallist Union Sekailwe for company after he clocked 24.29 in his heat.
Despite the additional silver medal, South Africa have slipped three positions in the medal table to 31st spot as the United States lead with a total of 29.
