Burger Lambrechts

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Burger Lambrechts (born 3 April 1973 in Pretoria) is a South African shot putter.

His international career started with a fifteenth place at the 1992 World Junior Championships. The following year he took his first national shot put title.^[1] In 1994 he threw past the 19 metre mark for the first time, with 19.06 metres achieved in April in his birth city. At his first World Championships, in 1997, he reached the final and placed tenth. He only managed one valid throw.^[2] In 1998 he won the gold medal at the African Championships with a throw of 19.78 metres. This was the best winning result since 1982, when Youssef Nagui Asaad threw 20.44 metres.^[3] In the same year he threw 20.01 metres when winning the Commonwealth Games held in Kuala Lumpur,^[4] and 20.29 metres in Johannesburg in September. Rarely competing in other athletics events, Lambrechts did throw 53.68 metres with the hammer (1996) and 58.60 with the discus (October 1998).

The following year Lambrechts led a South African clean sweep in the shot put at the All-Africa Games while fellow South Africans (Frantz Kruger, Chris Harmse and Marius Corbett) won the other three throwing events for men. Throwing 19.50 metres, this time Lambrechts beat the championship record of Youssef Nagui Asaad, which had stood at 19.48 since 1973.^[5] He finished ninth at the World Championships the same year, once again with only one valid throw in the final round.^[6] At the 2000 Summer Olympic Lambrechts failed to reach the final for the first time in a worldwide event. With a 19.75 throw he fell 4 centimetres short of the place in the final, which ironically went to his compatriot Janus Robberts, though it should be noted that Canada's Bradley Snyder was even closer with 19.77 metres.^[7]

In February 2001 Lambrechts established a new South African record with 20.90 metres in Port Elizabeth. However, at this meet he tested positive for stanozolol. The record throw was annulled and Lambrechts was banned from competing for two years.^[8] He returned to win the gold medal at the 2003 All-Africa Games, retaining the title he won four years earlier, and the silver medal at the African Championships in July 2004. The same month he achieved a lifetime best throw of 20.63 metres in Pretoria, which ranks him second in Africa behind fellow South African Janus Robberts. ^[9] A month later he entered the 2004 Summer Olympics. Managing only 18.67 metres, he placed fourth from the bottom.^[10] He has not competed internationally since.