Although not even 15 years old, the talented young athlete Morné Moolman already possesses the potential to become one of the best South African javelin athletes of all times. This is the unanimous point of view of all those who are familiar with the qualities which are needed for an athlete to proceed to the very top in this very technical athletics event.
And to realise that their opinion is not at all far-fetched, one only has to study the performances and achievements of the young athlete over the past few months to agree with their judgment.

At the 2008 14th annual MTBS inter-school's meeting between the teams of DF Malan, Tygerberg, Bellville and Stellenberg High Schools, Morné, then in the colours of Tygerberg High School, improved the existing boys u.14 javelin record from 46.42 m to 57.54 m. This achievement enabled him to walk off, not only with the award for the best boys u.14 athlete at the meeting, but also with the one for the overall top performer.
In October 2008, at the Grey College/HMS Oranje Clover Invitation Meeting in Bloemfontein, Morné won the boys u.14 javelin with a new South African record distance of 62.79 m (1450 table points), which was the best overall performance at the meeting.
In the same month he added two more top performances to his already inpressive tally. In Parow North, at an open meeting of the Tygerberg/Northlink club, he improved the Western Province boys u.15 record of 60.10 m, established in 1990, to 62.10 m. This he followed up in the Southern Cape with a winning distance of 62.69 m at the Top 10 Meeting of Bredasdorp High School. Soon afterwards he threw the javelin 63.00 m at the DF Malan Schools' Invitation Meeting in Bellville. And still there was more to come. In November, at a junior meeting of the Bellville AC, Morné put up another splendid performance by winning the javelin in his age division with a distance of 67.99 m.

He started 2009 off with a bang at a Western Province junior meeting in Bellville where he, now as an u.15 athlete, won the javelin with a distance of 67.41 m.
Then followed the 2009 MTBS meeting in Bellville on Thursday 12 February.
With his very first effort in the boys u.15 event, Morné, now competing for DF Malan High School, succeeded with an effort of 69.23 m which was an improvement of 15.39 m of the existing record of 53.84 m, set by Andri Claassen of Tygerberg High in 2006. Morné also had nother excellent effort of 69.16 in the competition. To put his remarkable effort in perspective, one must bear in mind that the distance achieved by the runner-up was only 43.61 m! Morné's superb performance enabled him to once again, for the second successive year, collect the award for the top performer in his age group, as well as the award for the meeting's overall top performer.
To prove his versatility, Morné also took part in the discus, an event in which he was placed third with a distance of 37.69 m.

A study of these statistics can lead to only one conclusion: Here is a young javelin athlete with a sparkling bright future ahead of him. If he can carry on in this vein during his u.17 and u.19 years, there is no reason why he should not, as a senior athlete, in the years to come follow in the footsteps of his countrymen and world-class javelin throwers such as Herman Potgieter, Koos van der Merwe, Marius Corbett and Robert Oosthuizen and become one of the best exponents of javelin throwing in the world.

via: Frans du Toit (Sports reporter/TYGERBURGER/DIE BURGER)