Ruben Ramolefi is considering having a go at his own 3000-metre steeplechase national record at this weekend’s Yellow Pages SA Senior Track and Field Championships at Kings Park Athletics Stadium in Durban.

Ramolefi excelled in the windy conditions at the Yellow Pages Series meeting at the same venue last month, winning the event in 8min 25.50sec.

“I have two coastal opportunities left to compete in during the Yellow Pages track and field season — the national championships this weekend and the Yellow Pages Series meeting in Stellenbosch on March 30,” said Ramolefi, who finished 14th in the final of his specialist event at the Olympic Games in Beijing two years ago.

“I will go to Durban with a plan but a lot of factors, including the weather, will come into the reckoning of whether my race on Sunday morning is the right moment for me to be able to go under my national mark of 8:11.63 set in Monaco last year. I feel that I am in shape to go between 8:15 and 8:20, but I will only know on the day whether I can dip in with a career best effort,” he added.

“My game is always to run from the front because it is there where one stays out of trouble. Let’s see what happens in Durban at the weekend.”

With Yellow Pages having doubled the Athlete of the Meet stakes to R30 000 for the top male and female performances at the event based on the IAAF points table system, fast times, high and far jumps, and distance throws are on the cards on Saturday and Sunday.

With many of SA’s track and field stars looking to post Commonwealth qualifying performances to be shortlisted for action at the Commonwealth Games in India later this year, the challenge for gold to prove who is the best in the country, is expected to provided much excitement.

Robert Oosthuizen (javelin) and Elizna Naude (discus) have already put in Commonwealth qualifying performances during the Yellow Pages Series to date, and they will be back representing Boland and Gauteng North respectively.

The presence of Khotso Mokoena (fresh from winning silver at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar last weekend), world 800m champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, world indoor championship finalist Juan van Deventer (1500 metres), Commonwealth champion Sunette Viljoen (javelin) and another world indoor championship finalists Rene Kalmer (3000 metres) are good enough reasons for the Kings Park Athletics Stadium in Durban to be the core sports venue for two days of action-packed athletics.