Kirkpatrick steals the spotlight as Nieman sets new SA u18 record
It is difficult to steal the show if your teammate and fellow hurdler sets a new South African u18 record, but that is what Jannelle Kirkpatrick (Hoërskool Menlopark) did on Saturday during the annual Wildeklawer Pretoria A Bond-meeting in the Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria.
Kirkpatrick received the award for the Senior Victrix Lodorum for achieving a maximum of 2 000 APE (Athletic Performance Evaluation) points during her two main events.
She broke the record in both the 100m and 400m hurdles in 13.26 and 58.30 seconds, respectively. Both performances were worth 1 000 points.
The records for both events had been held by her teammate and current African girls’ u18 100m hurdles record holder (13.02), Megan Nieman. The previous record for the short hurdles had stood at 13.40 seconds, while the one-lap hurdles record was previously 58.64 seconds.
Kirkpatrick also secured gold in the 400m sprint in a time of 55.76 seconds. She also holds the 100m hurdles meeting records in the u14 (12.89), u15 (12.35), and u16 age groups (13.26).
Nieman was also on fire during the meeting. She won the girls’ u17 100m hurdles in a new meeting record of 13.11 seconds, smashing the previous mark, which had stood since 2015 behind the name of former SA Senior record holder Taylon Bieldt (Montana) at 13.58 seconds.
Nieman’s best performance came in the 400m hurdles, in which she set a South African u18 record of 56.57 seconds. The old mark was set in Pietermaritzburg in 2024, when Tumi Ramokgopa (Prestige College) stopped the clock at 57.04.
Nieman’s South African record destroyed the previous meeting record, 59.30 seconds, which had been held by Prestige College’s Gontse Morake since 2018. The Menlo Park star added another win when she sprinted to the 100m title in 11.67 seconds.
Another Kirkpatrick, Janelle’s younger sister, Lin-mari, also set a new meeting record in the 300m hurdles of 43.12 seconds.
In the 100m sprints, Camara Bintou, of Curro Hazeldean, was the fastest of all the girls, even though she competed in the girls’ u14 race. Her winning time of 11.66 seconds set a new meeting record and also bettered the unofficial South African u15 record of 11.74, which was set by Nicola de Bruyn (Eldoraigne) in 2014.
De Bruyn remains the meeting’s record-holder in the girls’ u15 and u16 100m, with both sitting at 11.79 seconds.
In the 200m, Lin-mari Kirkpatrick pipped by a hundredth of a second to win the 200 metres in 24.54 seconds. Bintou’s time of 24.55 was also quicker than the previous meeting record held by Nosipho Malinga (Prestige College, 24.91).
Bintou added another meeting record to her list of achievements when she won the 400m in a blistering 56.83 seconds.
In the middle distances, no one performed better than Leandri Pretorius of Waterkloof. She set three meeting records in the 800m (2:12.58), 1500m (4:21.98), and 3 000m (9:48.60). The first two records were achieved in the u16 age group and the latter in the u17 age group.
