Olympic long jump silver medallist Khotso Mokoena will compete at the Commonwealth Games starting in New Delhi, India on Sunday.
South Africa's team doctor, Shuaib Manjra, said on Wednesday that the African record holder had fully recovered from a leg injury.
Mokoena's confirmation will provide the small South African athletics contingent, down to nine athletes, with some welcome relief after the withdrawals of world 800m champions Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and Caster Semenya due to back injuries.
"With Mokoena we find no reason that he can't compete at the highest level here at the Commonwealth Games," Manjra said.
"There have been media reports that he hasn't been able to train for eight weeks and would be unfit for competition, but we have evidence which says otherwise.
"We feel that Mokoena is fit enough to come to Delhi and he will be injury-free and able to go for gold, which is what we expect of an athlete of his calibre."
Mokoena, who leaves for India on Thursday, has been in solid form this season, winning silver at the World Indoor
Championships in Doha in March and gold at the African Athletics Championships in Nairobi in July.
Despite battling niggling injuries through the year, the 25-year-old is ranked 12th in the world after leaping 8.23 metres to claim the continental title, and will line-up as a firm favourite to step on the podium in Delhi.
Manjra also confirmed that Mulaudzi, who had said in reports last week he would not compete at the Games, had failed to shrug off a back injury, and that team management had agreed to wipe his name from the entry list a day after Semenya had withdrawn with a similar problem.
"In Mulaudzi's case we did extensive testing on him and found abnormalities," Manjra said. "We therefore have decided to withdraw him from the squad."
