{"id":47128,"date":"2015-03-14T14:34:53","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T12:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/2015\/03\/uj-discus-star-claims-gold-at-african-champs\/"},"modified":"2015-03-14T14:34:53","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T12:34:53","slug":"uj-discus-star-claims-gold-at-african-champs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/uj-discus-star-claims-gold-at-african-champs\/","title":{"rendered":"UJ discus star claims gold at African Champs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Johan<\/p>\n

The University of Johannesburg’s discus star Johan Scholtz claimed gold for South Africa at the 12th CAA African Junior Athletics Championships, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from March 5 to 8. He’s pictured here on his return to SA with coach Pierre Blignaut (centre) and girlfriend and fellow gold medallist Leandri Geel. Photo: Supplied<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

University of Johannesburg discus star Johan Scholtz claimed gold for South Africa at the 12th CAA African Junior Athletics Championships, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from March 5 to 8.<\/p>\n

Scholtz sailed ahead of his nearest rivals with a winning throw of 57.57m, outdistancing his previous personal best of 56.76m in the process.<\/p>\n

Fellow UJ student and triple jumper Zinzi Chabangu came within 12cm of her own SA record to land a jump of 13.03m and the bronze medal in that event.<\/p>\n

Another first-year field athlete, Wanzel Breytenbach, joined her classmates for a respectable fifth-place finish in the shot-put with a heave of 11.73m.<\/p>\n

Scholtz said his performance had gone according to plan but that setting a new PB had been an unexpected highlight.<\/p>\n

“The weather was perfect and the crowd was amazing, cheering us on while we participated in our events.”<\/p>\n

The eighteen-year-old business management student said it had been a privilege to be able to compete for his country at international level.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t familiar with my competitors and when we arrived at the stadium the adrenaline began to pump and I was a bit nervous,” he said.<\/p>\n

Scholtz, who hails from Pretoria, said it was soon clear that the athletes from Egypt would be his biggest challengers on the day.<\/p>\n

“They are very competitive field athletes,” he said.<\/p>\n

His predictions proved correct as that country’s Hassan Elshabrawy took silver with a distance of 54.74m, while fellow South African Jason van Rooyen rounded out the podium for a throw of 52.68m.<\/p>\n

Scholtz previously represented South Africa at the 2013 IAAF Youth World Championships in Donesk, Ukraine, where he placed 13th in his signature event.<\/p>\n

The UJ student also scooped the gold medal at the African Union Sports Council under-20 youth games in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, last year.<\/p>\n

“My aspiration is to throw 60m by the end of the year, and then, like every athlete, my dream is to compete in the Olympic Games.”<\/p>\n

Scholtz’s next competition will be at the Central Gauteng Athletics meeting on March 14 where he will be aiming to qualify for the SA championships.<\/p>\n

MyJHB<\/a><\/p>\n

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The University of Johannesburg’s discus star Johan Scholtz claimed gold for South Africa at the 12th CAA African Junior Athletics Championships, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from March 5 to 8. He’s pictured here on his return to SA with coach Pierre Blignaut (centre) and girlfriend and fellow gold medallist Leandri Geel. Photo: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3332],"tags":[3050,6229,2560,7068,1133,4581],"class_list":{"0":"post-47128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-johannesburg-south-africa","7":"tag-african","8":"tag-champs","9":"tag-claims","10":"tag-discus","11":"tag-gold","12":"tag-star","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}