SA athletics team doubles medals in Addis Ababa

South Africa has added another medal at the 16th African Athletics Championships in Addis Ababa and more than doubled its medal tally of the first two days.

The gold medal total increased from one to five while two more athletes, 400m hurdler LJ Van Zyl and Tsholofelo Thipe in the 400m sprint, booked their seats on the plane to the Beijing Olympics later this year.

Three women high jumpers – Anika Smit, Marcoleen Pretorius and Marizca Gertenbach, made a clean sweep in their high jump event. Simone du Toit and the women's 4 x 100m relay quartet also won bronze medals.

African Games champions, Janice Josephs added the 2008 African Championships title to her collection. The 26-year-old won the long jump gold medal with a fine jump of 6.64 metres.

It was South Africa's sixth gold medal of the Championships - the fifth on the day. On the medal standings, South Africa is in the lead followed by Nigeria with nine and Ethiopia is third with seven.