Luvo Manyonga, we salute you! One centimetre prevented Manyonga from grabbing gold, but the 25-year-old clinched a silver medal in a dramatic long jump final at the Rio Olympics on Saturday.
The man from Mbekweni in the Western Cape completed a remarkable return to the top-flight by finishing second to American Jeff Henderson in a last round that couldn’t have been scripted better by Hollywood’s best writers.
Manyonga had produced an excellent jump of 8.28m in his fourth attempt to take the lead from another American, Jarrion Lawson, and he increased it in the next round with an unbelievable leap of 8.37m, which was a new personal best.
It looked like Manyonga was a sure bet for the gold medal, but it is not clear why he didn’t jump in the last round as it wasn’t televised. The official records show that Manyonga no-jumped for his sixth attempt, and he had to watch Henderson, Lawson and Great Britain’s Greg Rutherford try to haul him in with their final jumps.
Rutherford could only muster 8.29m, but then Henderson pulled out the most important jump of his career with an amazing leap of 8.38m to snatch the lead and push Manyonga into second place.
But the drama wasn’t over yet, as world leader for 2016 Lawson had a last chance to win. The American came up with a terrific effort, and TV evidence suggested that he could’ve surpassed both Henderson and Manyonga.
But the replays showed that Lawson had touched the sand with his left hand, and he was credited with a distance of 7.78m.
It meant that Henderson could celebrate gold, but it also resulted in Manyonga leaping around in delight – wrapped in a South African flag – as he realised that he had secured a silver medal.
It is a heart-warming outcome for Manyonga, as just a few years ago, he battled tik addiction and had lost his long-time coach Mario Smith in a car accident just when he was plotting his comeback.
Manyonga was the 2010 world junior champion, but never quite fulfilled that early promise due to his drug problems while living in the Mbekweni township just outside Paarl.
But he was assisted by the Sascoc and relocated to Pretoria in 2015 to be based the high-performance centre of the University of Pretoria, and qualified for Rio with a new personal best of 8.30m in March this year.
He had been inconsistent, though, and bombed spectacularly at the SA nationals in April, where he was well out of the medals.
But it all came together for him in Brazil on a glorious Saturday night, and having always been considered as someone with immense talent, Manyonga can be proud about having finally fulfilled it with his silver, the sixth medal for Team SA in Rio.
Manyonga emulates veteran jumper Khotso Mokoena, who also won a silver in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Ruswahl Samaai, though, had a disappointing night, especially as he had high hopes of winning a medal coming into the competition. He failed to qualify for the last eight, with his best jump of the night being 7.97m.
@ashfakmohamed
Independent Media