Charl's heroics can't save Team SA

18 September 2016 - 02:00 By David Isaacson

Sprinter Charl du Toit joined an elite club when he finished first in the 400m in Rio on Friday to add to his 100m Paralympic gold.Others to win two or more golds at a single Games include Natalie du Toit, Oscar Pistorius and 2016 SA team incumbents Hilton Langenhoven, Fanie van der Merwe and Philippa Johnson.Du Toit, with cerebral palsy, is competing at his second Games, but he is one of the few new faces on the podium - of SA's 13 medallists by yesterday morning, just four had not bagged medals at previous Games. Schoolboy amputee Ntando Mahlangu was the youngest of the debutants at 14.Team SA is doomed to march into tonight's closing ceremony with its lowest post-isolation medal haul since Barcelona 1992 when they won eight gongs.By yesterday morning SA had amassed 14 medals, six of them gold.That total is half the 28 from Atlanta 1996 - SA's previous second-lowest tally - and 37% of the record 38 from Sydney 2,000...

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