Kyle Blignaut targets World Championships qualification in Botswana

The 23-year-old Olympian will compete in the Botswana Grand Prix Continental Gold Tour in Gaborone on Saturday, after using the ASA Grand Prix 3 Continental Tour Challenger in Potchefstroom earlier in the week to gauge his readiness.

Blignaut threw 20.03 meters to win gold in the North West.

"When I woke up this morning and saw my name on the list, I thought let me use this as qualification and Saturday is the finals then because I'm going to Gabarone to compete at the Continental Tour Gold there," said Blignaut.

"So, I thought let me have a cracker tonight and use it as a qualification, get a bit of competition experience back because I haven't competed much this year, and just start getting back into the thick of things.

"So, I felt great [on Wednesday] starting out and we had about a 40-minute break when the block gave way so that broke a bit of momentum, but I still got over the 20m-mark, which is not bad at the moment.

"I feel like I can get about a metre on this on Saturday, so hopefully I'm there. I feel like once I get going and I start throwing in Europe, I'll hit the qualification mark, and, worst-case scenario, I'll hit the rankings.

"Because I plan on competing quite a lot in Europe, so I think once I start going there, I'll hit 21s and definitely get personal best distances, so I think I should qualify for World Champs."