Bayanda Walaza leads South Africa’s young sprint stars at 2025 African Championships

Young sprint star Bayanda Walaza will lead the South African charge at the 2025 CAA African Under-18 and Under-20 Championships from July 16-20 in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

The team includes 14 girls in the U18 division and 19 women in the U20 age group, as well as 17 U18 boys and 20 U20 men.

The world-class squad is spearheaded by U20 world 100m and 200m champion Walaza, who will compete in the junior men's 100m event.

Walaza broke the South African U20 100m record in Zagreb, Croatia, on May 24. His time of 9.94 seconds was also just 0.03 seconds off the U20 world record held by Botswana’s Olympic gold medallist Letsile Tebogo.

The 19-year-old SA sprint sensation was also a key part of the SA 4X100m relay team that stormed to gold at the World Athletics Relays in China earlier in May.

He ran the lead-off leg, with veteran sprinter Akani Simbine anchoring the team that finished in a world-leading time of 37.61. They became the first African team to win gold in this event at the World Relays.

Walaza also won silver in the 4X100m relay alongside Simbine at last year’s Paris Olympics.

Other athletes in the junior men's team who will be targeting gold medals include Njabulo Mbatha, who was fourth in the 400m hurdles at last year's World Athletics U20 Championships, and rising long jump star Temoso Masikane.

Mbatha made history at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Pietermaritzburg last year, becoming the youngest athlete to medal in a senior 400m hurdles final. His time of 49.57 was the second-fastest in the world for an U18 athlete in 2024.

The junior women’s team includes a number of in-form athletes, led by the likes of Tumi Ramokgopa, who lines up in the U20 women’s 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles events.

Alicia Khunou will compete in the junior women's shot put, and sprinter Hannah Hope Vermaak will enter the blocks in the 100m and 200m sprints.

Among the U18 athletes in the team are SA senior women’s 200m champion Rume Burger and in-form 110m hurdler Phenyo Miyen, who clocked an impressive time of 12.91 in a solo effort in his specialist event at the ACNW Open meeting in Potchefstroom last week.

The time wasn’t official, and Miyen will no doubt be itching to prove that it wasn’t a fluke when he faces some of the continent’s most exciting young athletics talent in Nigeria.