{"id":32712,"date":"2026-04-22T11:42:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32712"},"modified":"2026-04-22T11:42:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:42:46","slug":"sa-sprinters-head-to-kenya-with-confidence-ahead-of-kip-keino-classic","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-sprinters-head-to-kenya-with-confidence-ahead-of-kip-keino-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"SA sprinters head to Kenya with confidence ahead of Kip Keino Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s (SA) top sprinters are heading to Kenya full of confidence after a strong showing at the national championships, where they carried their form into the international season.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All attention will be on Gift Leotlela, who arrives in Nairobi in peak condition after successfully defending his 100m national title in Stellenbosch last weekend. The 26-year-old will line up at the Kip Keino Classic on Saturday at the Nyayo National Stadium, facing a competitive international field.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Leotlela will go up against Kenya\u2019s sprint star Ferdinand Omanyala and Mark Otieno, fellow SA Rivaldo Roberts, Canada\u2019s Aaron Brown, and American sprinter Brandon Hicklin.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking ahead of the race, Leotlela said the meet comes at the right time as he builds towards the Diamond League meetings in Shanghai and Xiamen next month. He believes the competition in Nairobi will provide a strong early-season test against some of the world\u2019s best.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He will be guided by coach Thabo Matebedi as he continues his preparations for a busy international athletics calendar.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":32713,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-32712","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"SA top sprinters are heading to Kenya full of confidence after a strong showing at the national championships","published_date":"2026-04-22 11:20:20","news_description":"SA top sprinters are heading to Kenya full of confidence after a strong showing at the national championships","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32714,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32712\/revisions\/32714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}