{"id":91602,"date":"2026-03-01T10:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=91602"},"modified":"2026-03-01T10:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:06:20","slug":"kirkpatrick-steals-the-spotlight-as-nieman-sets-new-sa-u18-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=91602","title":{"rendered":"Kirkpatrick steals the spotlight as Nieman sets new SA u18 record"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PHOTO: Frans Lombard\/Actionpix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is difficult to steal the show if your teammate and fellow hurdler sets a new South African u18 record, but that is what Jannelle Kirkpatrick<\/strong> (Ho\u00ebrskool Menlopark) did on Saturday during the annual Wildeklawer Pretoria A Bond-meeting<\/strong> in the Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria.<\/p>\n

Kirkpatrick received the award for the Senior Victrix Lodorum<\/strong> for achieving a maximum of 2 000 APE (Athletic Performance Evaluation) points during her two main events.<\/p>\n

She broke the record in both the 100m\u00a0 and 400m hurdles in 13.26 and 58.30 seconds, respectively. Both performances were worth 1 000 points.<\/p>\n

The records for both events had been held by her teammate and current African girls’ u18 100m hurdles record holder (13.02), Megan Nieman<\/strong>. The previous record for the short hurdles had stood at 13.40 seconds, while the one-lap hurdles record was previously 58.64 seconds.<\/p>\n

Kirkpatrick also secured gold in the 400m sprint in a time of 55.76 seconds. She also holds the 100m hurdles meeting records in the u14 (12.89), u15 (12.35), and u16 age groups (13.26).<\/p>\n

Nieman was also on fire during the meeting. She won the girls’ u17 100m hurdles in a new meeting record of 13.11 seconds, smashing the previous mark, which had stood since 2015 behind the name of former SA Senior record holder Taylon Bieldt<\/strong> (Montana) at 13.58 seconds.<\/p>\n

Nieman’s best performance came in the 400m hurdles, in which she set a South African u18 record of 56.57 seconds. The old mark was set in Pietermaritzburg in 2024, when Tumi Ramokgopa<\/strong> (Prestige College) stopped the clock at 57.04.<\/p>\n

Nieman’s South African record destroyed the previous meeting record, 59.30 seconds, which had been held by Prestige College’s Gontse Morake<\/strong> since 2018. The Menlo Park star added another win when she sprinted to the 100m title in 11.67 seconds.<\/p>\n

Another Kirkpatrick, Janelle’s younger sister, Lin-mari<\/strong>, also set a new meeting record in the 300m hurdles of 43.12 seconds.<\/p>\n

In the 100m sprints, Camara Bintou<\/strong>, of Curro Hazeldean, was the fastest of all the girls, even though she competed in the girls’ u14 race. Her winning time of 11.66 seconds set a new meeting record and also bettered the unofficial South African u15 record of 11.74, which was set by Nicola de Bruyn<\/strong> (Eldoraigne) in 2014.<\/p>\n

De Bruyn remains the meeting’s record-holder in the girls’ u15 and u16 100m, with both sitting at 11.79 seconds.<\/p>\n

In the 200m, Lin-mari Kirkpatrick<\/strong> pipped by a hundredth of a second to win the 200 metres in 24.54 seconds. Bintou’s time of 24.55 was also quicker than the previous meeting record held by Nosipho Malinga<\/strong> (Prestige College, 24.91).<\/p>\n

Bintou added another meeting record to her list of achievements when she won the 400m in a blistering 56.83 seconds.<\/p>\n

In the middle distances, no one performed better than Leandri Pretorius<\/strong> of Waterkloof. She set three meeting records in the 800m (2:12.58), 1500m (4:21.98), and 3 000m (9:48.60). The first two records were achieved in the u16 age group and the latter in the u17 age group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is difficult to steal the show if your teammate and fellow hurdler sets a new South African u18 record, but that is what Jannelle Kirkpatrick (Ho\u00ebrskool Menlopark) did on Saturday during the annual Wildeklawer Pretoria A Bond-meeting in the Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria. Kirkpatrick received the award for the Senior Victrix Lodorum for achieving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}