It was a night to remember for South Africa’s Jo-Ané van Dyk in Paris as she became an Olympic Games medalist on Saturday.

Van Dyk (26), representing North West University, claimed the silver medal in the women’s javelin to take South Africa’s tally up to six medals at the Paris Olympics. With the third throw of the final at Stade de France Van Dyk, registered a distance of 63.93m for the silver medal.

Jo-Ané van Dyk. Photo: Roger Sedres

Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan threw a season’s best of 65.80m for the win and gold medal, which came from her first throw of the final. Nikola Ogrodníková of the Czech Republic also threw a season’s best with her third throw for a distance of 63.68m which was good enough to get onto the podium for the bronze medal.

After the amazing performance, Van Dyk said even her fiancée and dad were crying in the crowd. “I hoped for it and I’m still amazed,” said Van Dyk.

Happy for her country, team

“I know what the other girls are capable of and throw it up until the last throw, so you can’t be sure of anything. It was only when the fourth girl threw that I knew I was in the medals and I was like: ‘Woah! I have a medal!’.

“It was a crazy night, just seeing everyone in the crowd – I haven’t seen my fiancée cry, almost ever, he cried. I haven’t seen my father cry, except maybe once or twice, he cried. I’m just happy for our country and I’m happy for the team.”

Van Dyk’s performance was certainly no fluke as during qualifying she threw a personal best of 64.22m with her first throw to win Group A. This was the fourth-best distance overall in the qualifying.

OFM Sport/Morgan Piek dg/mvh