Sports review 2009-Women on the block |31 December 2009
Women excelled at the top level of their sports. They trained as often and as intensively as their male counterparts, and showed the same pride, passion and competitive spirit to achieve good results. They were the winners as they beat male athletes at their own game. They are the heroines for these times.
The telling moments weren’t confined to one sport. Glory was everywhere – in local and international competitions.
In this review, we will take a look at Seychelles’ best moments on the international stage.
Leveau-Agricole galvanises entire nation
Outgoing three-time Sportswoman of the Year Lindy Leveau-Agricole galvanised the entire nation when she added a second Jeux de la Francophonie javelin title to her already weighty CV.
At the sixth Jeux de la Francophonie in Lebanon in September, Leveau-Agricole, 30, successfully defended her title won for the first time in Niamey, Niger, in 2005, with a games record distance of 57.48m to improve Frenchwoman Nathalie Teppe’s old best of 57.44m set in 1994.
Leveau-Agricole also won the Southern Region Senior Athletics Championship javelin gold medal with a throw of 50.97m in Gaborone, Botswana.
High jumper Lissa Labiche, who registered a season’s best of 1.74m at the World Junior Athletics Championships in Südtirol, Italy, in July, claimed a gold medal at the African Junior Athletics Championship in Mauritius with a bar of 1.69m.
Janet Boniface was twice silver medallist at the same championship in Mauritius with 5.98m in the long jump and 12.12m in the triple jump.
Invited to compete in Reunion for the first time, Simone Jaffa won the 9km hill run at Piton Patates, Saint-François, in a time of 55 minutes 37 seconds.
On Sunday July 5, Jaffa finished second in the Marathon Ecolo de Tampon, smashing the Seychelles marathon record with a new time of 3h34:49 – 7 minutes and 25 seconds faster than Rachel Esparon’s old best of 3h42:25 set during the fifth IOIG in Reunion.
Weightlifters lift loaded bars for Commonwealth and African medals
On the weightlifting platform in Penang, Malaysia, Clementina Agricole won the Commonwealth Championship women’s senior 53kg category gold medal with an Olympic total of 177kg (77kg in snatch and 100kg in clean & jerk).
She also won the UESAKA International Club Tournament 53kg category bronze medal, and at the African Weightlifting Championships in Kampala, Uganda, the 21-year-old snatched a new Seychelles record of 78kg to win the silver medal. She also clean & jerked 92kg to win a bronze medal to finish with an Olympic total of 170kg to earn the silver medal in the women’s senior 53kg division.
“This is my best ever result in any international competition,” Agricole told Sports Nation.
“It is probably the best result a Seychellois athlete has ever achieved internationally,” added the lifter, who competed despite carrying a leg injury.
Katsia Télémaque won the Commonwealth Championship junior 48kg category bronze medal, snatching 65kg and lifting 73kg in the clean & jerk for an Olympic total of 138kg.
The 20-year-old also made a clean sweep of the gold medals in the women’s junior 48kg category with then record lifts of 63kg (snatch) and 73kg (clean & jerk) for an Olympic total of 136kg at the African Weightlifting Championships in Kampala.
Her snatch performance also earned her a silver medal in the senior category.
“A knee injury did not prevent me from competing and I’m proud of making a clean sweep of the gold medals in the junior category. Had I been 100% fit, I would have done much better in the senior category, which did not look that tough. I’m happy with what I’ve achieved,” said Télémaque on her return from Kampala.
Three-time former Sportswoman of the Year Janet Georges (formerly Thélermont) snatched 82kg to win the women’s senior 63kg division silver medal and finished with 95kg in the clean-and-jerk to grab the bronze medal. She also took a bronze with an Olympic total of 177kg.
Ah-Wan’s third African women’s singles title
African female badminton icon Juliette Ah-Wan won Seychelles’ only gold medal at the 11th African Senior Badminton Championships in Kenya, in April, beating South African Stacey Doubel 2-0 (21-15, 21-7) in the final for a third African women’s singles title in eight years.
Said Ah-Wan: “I felt good to win the singles title a third time in my career. The triumph kind of surprised me as I didn’t feature among the top seeds.”
This was the second time Ah-Wan had beaten Doubel to become the African champion. In 2006 in Algiers, Algeria, she whitewashed the South African 2-0 (21-10, 21-12) in the final for her second singles title.
Twice Sportswoman of the Year, in 2000 and 2007, queen-of-the-court Ah-Wan first became African champion in 2002 in Casablanca, Morocco, when she trounced Nigerian number one Grace Daniel 3-0 (7-3 7-4 7-3) in the final.
Seychelles also won two silver and four bronze medals at the championships held at the Moi International Sports Complex in Kasarani, Nairobi.
The mixed doubles duo of Ah-Wan and Georgie Cupidon earned a silver medal following their 1-2 (21-18, 20-22, 16-21) final loss to the Nigerian pair of Grace Daniel and Oluwa Fagbemi.
The other silver came in the team event after Seychelles lost 1-3 to South Africa in the final.
The bronze medals were won by Ah-Wan and Catherina Paulin in the women’s doubles after they lost 1-2 (19-21, 21-19, 17-21) to a South African duo, by Paulin in the ladies’ singles after her 0-2 (13-21, 17-21) semifinal loss to Doubel, by Steve Malcouzane in the men’s singles after falling 0-2 (18-21, 13-21) to a Nigerian, and by the pair of Cupidon and Malcouzane in the men’s doubles after their 0-2 (10-21, 18-21) defeat by a Nigerian pair in the semifinal.
Camille African junior singles champion
In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in August, shuttler Alisen Camille, 17, was crowned women’s junior singles champion after three days of fierce competition at the ninth All-Africa Junior Badminton Championship.
She did not drop a single set in five matches, opening her campaign with a 2-0 (21-9, 21-12) first-round win over Sudanese Sharaf Yathrib before defeating Bitumelo MPipi from Botswana 2-0 (21-7, 21-8) in a second-round fixture.
In the quarterfinal against Ugandan top seed Shamim Bangi, she won 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) to set up a semifinal encounter with Mauritian Yeldi Louison, whom she beat 2-0 (21-19, 23-21).
In the final she was up against Mauritian Kate Foo Kune and won 2-0 (21-19, 21-16) to capture the gold medal.
“The hard work in training has paid off and I’m happy to be the African women’s singles junior champion. But it wasn’t an easy task to reach this far,” she told Sports Nation on her return.
“Most of the matches were tough, especially the semifinal against Mauritian Yeldi Louison. Winning against Louison and Kate Foo Kune provided me with the opportunity to avenge last year’s Jeux de la Commission de la Jeunesse et des Sports de l’Océan Indien defeats against both of them.”
Zone 7 junior table tennis gold for Benstrong
Anniessa Benstrong won the singles gold medal of the Zone 7 junior (under-18) tournament in Mauritius, beating Mauritian Deborah Wong 4-0 in the final.
She was the women’s doubles silver medallist alongside partner Laura Sinon and settled for the bronze medal with Anil Nibourette as partner in the mixed doubles.
At the Mauritius International, Benstrong won the women’s singles silver medal and Janice Mellie took the bronze. Godfrey Sultan won the men’s singles bronze medal.
Seychelles hosted the third Zone 7 open tournament, and Reunionnais table tennis players made a clean sweep of the seven gold medals and also won two silvers and a bronze.
Seychelles won 13 medals – five silvers and eight bronzes. The silver medallists were Godfrey Sultan (men’s singles), Godfrey Sultan and Achille Dodin (men’s team event and men’s doubles), Laura Sinon and Janice Mellie (women’s team event and women’s doubles).
The bronze medals went to Janice Mellie (women’s singles), Godfrey Sultan and Laura Sinon (mixed doubles), Margaret Gabriel and Samantha François (women’s doubles and women’s team event), Christy Bristol and Nadine Barra (women’s team event), Vincent Isaac and Anil Nibourette (men’s doubles and men’s team event), and Ronny Marengo and Dario Laurence (men’s team event).
Swimmer Austin’s African junior bronzes
In the Serge-Alfred pool in Beau Bassin, Mauritius, Shannon Austin won the 200m individual medley (2:34.21) and 400m individual medley (5:26.63) bronze medals at the eighth African Junior Championship.
She is the first Seychellois to win medals at the championship reserved for 12 to 14 and 15 to 16-year-olds.
At the Jeux de l’Espoir in Mauritius in November, Marie-Helen Rose (shot put), Victoria Alis (800m) and Thara Hoareau (tennis women’s singles) won a gold medal apiece.
Woodcock, Labiche male gold medallists
Some male athletes also did Seychelles proud in international competitions, starting with Praslinois high jumper William Woodcock, 23, who snatched a gold medal at the Southern Region Senior Athletics Championship in Botswana, when he cleared the bar at 2.15m for the first time this year.
Simon Labiche won two races in Reunion – a 10km distance in St Paul (32 minutes, 16 seconds) and a half-marathon (21km) at l’Étang-Salé (1 hour, 10 minutes, 22 seconds).
José Labiche registered a personal best height of 2.02m to win the high jump bronze medal at the African Junior Athletics Championship in Mauritius.
Charles Siméon clinched the bronze medal in clean & jerk with a best lift of 150kg after snatching 110kg for an Olympic total of 260kg at the African Weightlifting Championships in Kampala.
Paddler Lespoir wins bronze medals
Twice bronze medallist Tony Lespoir was more than satisfied with his results at the Confederation of African Canoeing (Cac) sixth flatwater African Canoe-Kayak Championships.
Sportsman of the Year Lespoir, 33, won bronze medals in the K1 200m (42.77 seconds) and 500m (2 minutes 09.53 seconds) races held at Cocody Bay in the Plateau area of Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
“This was my first international competition this year and I cannot ask for a better result. I did not have a coach this year and therefore trained on my own for the championship,” said Lespoir, who last year won the K1 500m silver medal on the Maringa Dam in Kenya to qualify for the Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
He also won the bronze medal in the K1 200m at the same championships in 2008.
Another bright and shining moment was when United Kingdom-based Nick Baldwin broke on to the world triathlon stage. He won the 18-24 age category of the One Last Tri event in the UK, finished seventh out of 11 in the Olympic distance triathlon ITU African Cup in Le More, Mauritius, took seventh place out of 305 competitors at the Sevenoaks Triathlon in Kent, UK, finished 187th out of 2,281 in the 140.6-mile Ironman triathlon in Klagenfurt, Austria, and ranked third in the 18-24 age category of the famous international UK Half Ironman Triathlon.
Mekdachi finishes fifth in heavyweight division
Ziad Al Adou Mekdachi, 30, surprised many as he capped a successful first season as a bodybuilder with fifth place in the heavyweight (under-100kg) category of the inaugural world amateur men’s bodybuilding championships organised by the World Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Federation at the Al Ahli Club's indoor hall in Dubai.
Winner of the Seychelles Amateur Bodybuilding Association (Sabba) Open, Mr Regatta, and Mr Seychelles titles, Mekdachi beat six other posers in the heavyweight division won by Austrian Christian Klee.
“I’m proud of what I’ve achieved in just one year of bodybuilding. This proves that I’ve been a dedicated bodybuilder,” he told Sports Nation.
“Although I’m happy with my performance, I’m not satisfied with fifth place. I expected at least a third-place finish, but I have to accept the judges’ decision. I also finished ahead of top bodybuilders like Razali Mahmud of Brunei, which is a very good result,” he said.
Martial artists come to the fore
Tang Soo Do grandmaster and founder of the World Tang Soo Do Association in 1982 Jae Chul Shin praised karatekas from Seychelles, South Africa and Mozambique for their spirited performances in the region 14 African championship, saying he was proud of what he saw.
After winning 26 of the 31 gold medals, five Seychellois karatekas – Saskia Vidot (junior female), Jordan Simara (junior male), Alex Louis (senior male), Nella Victor (senior female) and Steven Hollanda (male junior black belt) – climbed on to the final podium to collect their prizes.
In another martial art style – taekwondo – Marc Chong Seng finished among the medals at the first Africa Cup International Taekwondo tournament. He won a gold medal in patterns (katas) and a silver in sparring in the tournament held in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In wrestling, Annette Gabriel (60kg), Francis Labrosse (66kg) and Andy Milius (84kg) were all bronze medallists at the Tournoi de l’Amitié de l’Océan Indien in Mauritius.
Jeff William and Roy Hoareau were the only two Seychellois on board the Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte boat, winner of the first Seychelles Regatta. Skippered by twice Vendée Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux, the Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte boat took five wins out of eight races.
G. G.