By GARY LEMKE in Swakopmund
It was 61 years ago that De Villiers Lambrecht became the first South African to run under four minutes for the mile when he created athletics history on 13th November 1964. And in 1970, Lambrecht ran a 3min 57.7sec mile at Stellenbosch’s Coetzenberg Stadium. Barefoot nogal.
Why are we telling you this? Well, Lambrecht’s grandson, also De Villiers, brought memories flooding back when he won the gold medal in the 1500m at the Region 5 Games at the Vineta Stadium in Swakopmund, beating Michael Bekker, who had won 3000m gold on Monday, into second place.
Lambrecht is in Matric at Grey College in Bloemfontein and has long lived with the expectation of carrying the family name as the grandson of one of South Africa’s athletics giants.
“I am used to it. My grandfather used to always remind me that he ran a mile unfer four minutes, and used to do so barefoot on cinder tracks. He told me that if he could do it like that, I should easily be able to as well with the quality of shoes and running surface we have it these days. It serves as good motivation for me!”
Lambrecht and Bekker sat at the back of the field for the first part of the race as a trio of runners went off fast and opened up a big lead. “I knew they were going too fast,” Lambrecht said afterwards. “They had covered that first 300m in 43 seconds. I stuck to my pre-race plan, with laps of 63 seconds.”
Despite the hot conditions and the race being run early afternoon, Lambrecht kept his cool and ran maturely. He calmly closed the gap on the leaders and ranged up to them and then pulled clear over the last two laps.
He’ll be back in action on Wednesday in the 800m, but any result would be a bonus as his main focus on the 1500m.
Lambrecht was one of four gold medallists for Team SA’s track and field team, with Luke Raffels confidently and impressively winning the boys lump jump and Stephane Hook having things her own way in the javelin. Then, Chemene Mentz closed out the programme by winning the girls 800m.
Hook was consistent with her six throws all ranging between 43.30m and 45.67m, and all six of her throws were good enough to win gold, with silver being won with a total of 41m and some change.
See our results service for a list of how Team SA’s athletes fared in the finals.
Photo: ROGER SEDRES
