WeeklySA_AdminDISAPPOINTED: World record holder Van Niekerk finished last in his men’s 400m final as TeamSA fails to register a single medal in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest
By Sports Reporter
It was naturally very disappointing to see Wayde van Niekerk run out of steam in the men’s 400m final of the World Athletics Championships on Thursday, as the world record holder was left frustrated after he had shown signs that he was back to his best form.
Like his semi-final, Van Niekerk faded in the last 100m as his push for a medal never materialised. Instead, he finished last in a time of 45.11 seconds as he was unable to add to histwo world championship crowns. “Very frustrating and disappointed. But obviously I have to take full responsibility. I’m the one that lined up and put the effort in,” Van Niekerk said after his race. “[It was] Off-par from what I can do. Also comparing it to the medalists, it’s not a good performance at all.”
It was particularly disappointing for Van Niekerk, who wasback to his best this season since he sustained a serious knee injury in 2017, which has derailed his career of the world record holder. This season Van Niekerk has seen his world ranking rise back to number one, but he was unable to replicate that form in the world championships.
Instead, his season’s best of 44.08 which he ran just last month in Poland seemed like a distant memory. The winning time of 44.22 run by Jamaica’s Antonio Watson was therefore a mark Van Niekerk certainly could have matched or bettered.
In the 400m heats at the World Championships he ran 44.57, 44.65 in the semis and then produced his worst time of the week in the final. Van Niekerk simply wasn’t able to produce when it mattered.
“I ran terrible. The run was well off. I’m a 44 (second) athlete from this season. I was wrong. I did not get my race right. I’m still processing everything, but not happy. But it’s what just happened, so I obviously need to process that and see what’s next,”
“Looking at the form I was in I believed I could do better. I’m not happy, but it’s my reality.”
Whether the issue for Van Niekerk is mental or physical is up for debate, and will be something he needs to figure out before the Paris Olympics next year.
The 2016 Olympic champion and world record holder Van Niekerk will be 32 when the event starts, and realistically it will be his last chance at reclaiming some of his former glory. It may end in ecstasy or more disappointment, but for now one thing is clear, Van Niekerk needs a break.
“I’m going to take a few days to switch off now. Mentally it’s been a journey. It’s still something I’m trying to understand. This mental thing is something new to me.” On Thursday, TeamSA also started the evening session of Day 6 with three athletes in the 200m semifinal and ended with no one qualifying for the finals. Shaun Maswanganyi, Sinesipho Dambile and Luxolo Adams were all run out of the 200m semis.
Most importantly these highly competent athletes all had little game time this year having missed most of the Wanda Diamond League meetings around the world.
On Friday all eyes will be on Prudence Sekgodiso who qualified for the women’s 800 metre semi finals.
…TEBOGO BRINGS JOY TO AFRICAN CONTINENT
PRODIGIOUS: Botswana’s top sprinter Letsile was also praised by winner Noah Lyles
By Sports Reporter
At the age of 20, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo gave the African continent its first-ever world medal in the men’s 100 m, track and field’s premier race, on Sunday in Budapest.
In the sweltering Hungarian heat, at the end of the home straight, Tebogo’s personal best time of 9 sec 88 was only beaten by Noah Lyles, the face of world athletics, by five hundredths.
The achievement was significant enough that when it was announced at the press conference, it was greeted by applause from Lyles and the third sprinter on the podium, Britain’s Zharnel Hughes.
Before him, a dozen or so, including Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala in the final on the Hungarian track, had broken their teeth. The last to do so before the 2023 edition was South Africa’s Akani Simbine, on three occasions in 2017, 2019 and 2022.
Tebogo has become a promise for world athletics beyond the African continent, becoming double world junior champion in the 100 m and double runner-up in the 200 m in 2021 and 2022.
Last year, when he was still 18, he became only the second runner in history to break the ten-second barrier in the 100 m before the age of twenty (with Bromell). A few months later, he broke the 20-second barrier in the 200 m.
Nevertheless, his world silver medal exceeded his own expectations. “I’m really proud to win this silver medal. This medal is a bonus for me. That wasn’t the plan, the objective, it was just the final,” admits Tebogo. By way of comparison, the year he turned 21, Usain Bolt – his “idol” even if he doesn’t “really remember watching him”, because he “never thought he could make a living from athletics” as a child – didn’t yet know what it was like to run the 100 m in under 10 seconds.
Before coming to athletics, which he only took up seriously around “2018-2019, when I realized I could become a professional”, Tebogo, raised by a single mother with his younger brother, played soccer, “as a winger because of my speed”. But the man who wrote a page in his continent’s sporting history on Saturday ultimately preferred to play an individual sport. “I think that after this medal, the continent and the country will think about organizing more races, and big races that people want to see,” hopes Tebogo, who divides his training between Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, South Africa and Europe throughout the year.
He also dreams of one day hosting the Olympic Games on African soil, “so that people can come and see how beautiful Africa is”.
“It’s time for Africa to take control of sprinting on the international stage”, he ventured in early 2022 to the specialist site Runblogrun. He, who will “try to reach the level” of Bolt, has taken the first step.
