Yussuf Alli the 1980 Olympian and African record holder believes Luvo Manyonga can break the world record and take it up to 9.09m
The South African got his season off to a phenomenal start setting a new SA indoor record with a 8.32m leap this weekend
Nigerian Alli believes Manyonga has the skill and talent to go the full way and it’s only a matter of time and a small adjustment to his take off which will change the projectory of his jump.
Alli also believes that the current grouping of jumpers will see the return of the classic years of 1980’s when he Carl Lewis mike Powell and other had to jump well above 8.3 outdoors to even be considered as a podium place.
The current world record of 8.95 was set by Mike Powell towards the end of Alli’s career in 1991.
Here are his comment:
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Manyonga’s record was only one of many excellent performances from SA athletes in the last week:
Sprinter Carina Horn broke the SA indoor 60m record twice
The first was a 7.10 on Friday and this was improved to 7.09m
Don Scott-Efurd also doubled up with a new SA record in the 1500m on Saturday night in Boston with a 4:07.25 – an improvement of over 3 seconds
This came hot on the heels of her 3000m record in the previous week.
Derrick Mokaleng also stunned South African enthusiasts carving 0.49 from the best ever SA indoor 400m to record 45.76 seconds and this as a 20 year old
Ironically Horn, Scott-Efurd and Mokaleng are not in Team SA for April’s commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast
There can be no doubt that this is the best w ever start to the SA Athletics season and there seems little stopping the athletes from achieving more in the coming months