Luvo Manyonga
Luvo Manyonga 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| nation |
 South Africa
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| birthday | 8th January 1991 (age 29) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| place of birth | Mbekweni, Paarl , South Africa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| size | 189 cm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 82 kg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discipline | Long jump | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Best performance | 8.65 m 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National squad | since 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| status | active | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Medal table | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| last change: July 31, 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Luvo Manyonga (born January 8, 1991 in Mbekweni near Paarl ) is a South African long jumper .
Athletic career
Manyonga grew up in poor conditions in the southwest of South Africa. His father, a truck driver, soon left the family so that he and his older siblings were raised by their mother, Joyce, alone. Despite these circumstances, Mayonga took part in athletics competitions, where his talent in the long jump was immediately recognized by the local trainer Mario Smith, who set the course for a professional career.
He was first noticed outside of South Africa in 2009 when he finished third at the Continental Athletics Championships in Mauritius with 7.49 m.
In 2010 he reached the world class with his first jump over 8 meters (8.19 m in Biberach ). In 2010 he was only the second African ever to win a long jump competition at the Junior World Championships (first was Godfrey Khotso Mokoena ).
The next year he was able to improve his personal record to 8.26 m and qualify for the World Athletics Championships. In contrast to compatriot and Olympic silver medalist from 2008 Mokoena, Manyonga was able to qualify for the final and reached fifth place there. In 2011 he also won the Africa Games in Maputo .
Right at the beginning of the new season, Mayonga jumped the 8-meter mark at a national event. But the financial success that has now set in destroyed his private life, as many friends and family borrowed money from him, so that Mayonga soon owed himself. His youth coach Mario Smith tried to solve the problem by supporting the family so that his protégé could concentrate on the sport again. However, these efforts failed to bear fruit, as Mayonga began taking tik, a South African variant of crystal meth , around that time . On March 20, 2012, he gave a positive doping test for drug abuse at a national event. He decided not to evaluate the B sample. Smith represented him at the subsequent trial and advocated a low sentence as the drug was not used for performance reasons. The tribunal gave a slightly reduced sentence of 18 months. The reduced sentence of normally two years was justified as follows: "The requirements of the WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] must be respected, but the exceptional social circumstances with which many black [ black ] athletes are facing in South Africa can cannot be ignored. "
After the suspension, he began to train with former rower and strength athlete from Ireland John McGrath. During this time, Mario Smith, who had been hired by McGrath as an assistant coach, died in a car accident on the way to a Manyongas competition. He missed his funeral because he ran into friends who were addicted to crystal meth. Then the last sponsors jumped out and McGrath had to buy him sports shoes out of his own pocket. But instead of buying special shoes for long jumpers, he got sprint spikes: “They get stuck on the board when jumping. Luvo jumped 8.15 meters anyway. ”Then the President of the National Olympic Committee Gideon Sam convinced himself of the athlete's living conditions. He was so shocked by this that he offered the high-performance athlete to pay for his future training (coaches: Toby Sutcliffe and Neil Cornelius) and to provide him with accommodation at the University of Pretoria . Manyonga accepted the offer and resumed training in mid-2015.
In March 2016 he set a new personal best with 8.30 m in Pretoria. At the African Championships in the same year he achieved his first medal in this event with silver, so that he traveled to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro with some outsider chances. He was able to confirm this role impressively and missed the gold medal behind Jeff Henderson by just an inch. Until the last jump (6th jump) by Henderson, Manyonga was even on the gold course.
But this time there was no slump after the successes and Mayonga was even able to improve his personal record in 2017 to 8.62 m. That was the world's longest jump since 2009. At the South African Championships in April 2017, he improved his record by a further 3 centimeters to 8.65 m, which puts him in eleventh place on the all-time best list (as of May 2017). At the end of 2016, he announced that he saw the nine meters in the realm of the possible - he would be the first person who could outdo this mark. At the World Championships in London he won 8.48 m in front of the American Jarrion Lawson (8.44 m) and his compatriot Ruswahl Samaai (8.32 m).
He won the silver medal at the 2018 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham. With 8.44 m he landed just two centimeters behind the winner Juan Miguel Echevarría and two centimeters in front of the third-placed Marquis Dendy. At the Commonwealth Games in the Australian Gold Coast , he won with a championship record of 8.41 m before the Australian Henry Frayne .
Web links
- Luvo Manyonga in the database of World Athletics (English)
- Luvo Manyonga in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Athlete profile at the Commonwealth Games 2018 (accessed on May 7, 2018).
- ↑ Alfred, Luke (2014-08-01). The impossibility of loving Luvo . Mail & Guardian
- ↑ Results African Junior Championships 2009 .
- ↑ Wenig, Jörg (2010-07-11). Hingst improves to 4.72m in Biberach . IAAF. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
- ↑ Raynor, Kayon (2010-07-23). Manyonga follows in Mokoena's footsteps . IAAF. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
- ^ All-Africa Games, Maputo (Mozambique) 11-15 / 09/2011 . AfricaAthle (2011-09-15). Retrieved July 31, 2016.
- ^ SA Institute for Drug Free Sport (SAIDS) - Anti Doping Disciplinary Hearing. Athlete: Mr Luvo Manyonga. Sports Federation: Athletics South Africa (ASA). Date: Tuesday 22 May 2012 . Drug Free Sport. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
- ↑ The long way to the top
- ↑ From meth junkie to high flyer
- ↑ Luvo Manyonga: From tik addict to Rio . Sport24 (2015-06-19). Retrieved July 31, 2016.
- ↑ Mohamed, Ashfak (2016-06-01). Luvo jumps at Diamond League chance . IOL. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
- ↑ Luvo Manyonga with the world's largest jump since 2009 eurosport (2017-03-18)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Manyonga, Luvo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South African long jumper |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 8, 1991 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mbekweni, Paarl |