Purple patch for athletics

We would have to turn the clock back a long way to recall a weekend of South African athletics as memorable as that which we experienced last week.

- with Wesley Botton

In Hamburg, 38-year-old Elroy Gelant shattered the national men's marathon record, clocking 2:05:36, to break the previous mark of 2:06:33 which was set by Gert Thys in Tokyo back in 1999.

Meanwhile, in China, Akani Simbine opened his international outdoor season with a dominant victory in the men's 100m race at the first leg of the Diamond League series.

Simbine clocked 9.99 seconds, thumping a strong field which included African record holder Ferdinand Omanyala, Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and American rocket Christian Coleman.