Godfrey Khotso Mokoena of South Africa wins silver in the Long Jump (© Getty Images)
Godfrey Khotso Mokoena, the World Junior Triple Jump champion and one of the most prolific breakers of South African junior records in recent years, has just entered the senior arena with a bright future ahead of him.
Mokoena was one of the stars of the 2004 World Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy, where he became the first male athlete to win medals in the Triple and Long Jump (silver) since the introduction of the IAAF’s World Junior Championships in 1986.
Long Jump, High Jump and also the triple Jump!
In Grosseto he first competed in the Long Jump and won the silver medal with a national junior record of 8.09m that moved him into third position on the South African all-time senior list. It also took him to within 12cm of Francois Fouche’s national senior record of 8.21m set in Johannesburg almost 15 years ago.
After a lay-off of about four months during which period he took his matriculation examination and did not get close to a track for ten weeks, the talented Mokoena travelled to Parow for the Engen holiday meeting in December 2004, and using the hitch-kick for the first time, surprised one and all with an excellent jump of 8.05m to close out his junior career.
He first attracted international attention in 2001 when he represented his country as a high jumper at the World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary from where he returned with a fifth placing and a career best height of 2.10m. Earlier in the same year he had won the Long Jump at the South African Youth Championships but in a subsequent meeting he had mpressed the national selectors with his high jumping potential to such an extent that he was sent to the global meeting in this discipline.
His coach, Elna de Beer, a schoolteacher at Nigel High School, had spotted his special talent, and from 2002 onwards he started rewriting the South African record books. In June of that year he set a youth and junior Long Jump record of 7.82m that earned him a place in the national team for the World Junior Championships in Jamaica. he came 12th in the final and the experience at the age of 17 worked wonders.
Multiple medals at All African and Afro-Asian Games
Ms de Beer caused another major upset a few months later when she persuaded Mokoena to have a go at the Triple Jump. In his first outing, and after only one training session ever, he broke the national Under 18 best with a jump of 15.84m. A week or so later he improved to 16.03m a leap which also registered a new national junior mark.
In 2003 he improved the Long Jump record to 7.84m and the Triple Jump mark to 16.28m with good performances at the All Africa Games in Nigeria which respectively netted him the bronze and the silver medal. Then he travelled to Hyderabad for the Afro-Asian Games and came away with two bronze medals (7.76m and 15.92m).
World Junior title and a silver too
Mokoena’s final year as a junior - 2004 - was the most rewarding. In the Long Jump he had national record jumps of 7.85 and 7.95 before the World Junior Championship competition in July. Then in Grosseto his series of six jumps including marks of 7.99, 8.00 and a world class 8.09m, grabbed the silver medal.
However, Mokoena went won better in his newest event the Triple Jump. A 16.77m leap was enough to give him a comfortable 11cm advantage over China’s Zhu Shujing.
But he had already triple jumped further that year. At the national Junior Championships in Bloemfontein his 16.96m had established not just a national senior and junior record but also a Area Junior record. Even before his World junior gold medal triumph this performance had ensured him a place in the Olympic team for Athens, where he was to leap a moderate 16.32 in qualification.
An event decision
The 19 year-old’s career will be closely followed when he joins the strong North West University athletics team in Potchefstroom later this month. His only current dilemma is to make a choice between the two jumps.
“At this stage it is going well in both (events) and with age on Godfrey’s side, a decision on whether we’ll decide to specialise will only be taken later,” confirmed De Beer. “There is no immediate hurry,” she added. Mokoena was born at Heidelberg on the 6th March 1985 and recently matriculated at Nigel High.
His first competition of the year is in the ABSA meeting at Potchefstroom on 4 February after which he will travel to Finland for two indoor meetings. At all three meets he will compete in the Long Jump.
Gert le Roux for the IAAF
