After another bitterly disappointing day at the Olympics on Thursday, South Africans can comfort themselves with the fact that the Tokyo Games closes on Sunday.
Team SA crashed out of the 4x100m relay in the heats thanks to a botched exchange between Clarence Munyai and Shaun Maswanganyi.
Maswanganyi, 20, took the blame after running out of his second-leg mark too slowly and getting in Munyai’s way and then stopped running as SA scored a Did Not Finish.
He says: “I guess when it was time for me to take my hand out, he was already on me… so the problem was the exchange.
“It was [in] the exchange zone between me pushing out and me getting the stick.”
On the athletics field, Kyle Blignaut finished sixth in the men’s shot put final with a throw off 21m on the dot.
Now it’s just left for marathon ladies Gerda Steyn and Irvette van Zyl to compete in tonight’s race at midnight, before Dominique Scott wraps it all up in tomorrow’s 10 000m final at 2.45pm.
Scott will be up against Netherlands ace Sifan Hassan, who is chasing an unprecedented triple scoop of track gold.
With the 5000m medal in the bag, Ethiopian-born athlete will go for the 1500m at 2.50pm today, before racing the longest distance 24 hours later.
Hasan’s exploits tomorrow will be followed by the fastest sprinters at Tokyo, with the women’s and men’s 4x100m finals (3.30pm and 3.50pm).
Also this weekend, basketball powerhouses USA and France will contest the gold-medal match tomorrow morning (4.30am).
Soccer fans are in for a treat tomorrow at 1.30pm, when defending champions Brazil take on 1992 winners Spain for gold at 1.30pm.
The closing ceremony for the Games will take place at 1pm on Sunday.