Wayde & Co to pick up speed in Bloem

JOHANNESBURG: South African athletics could be in for another record-breaking day when Olympic 400m champion Wayde van Niekerk and junior sensation Gift Leotlela line up against each other at today’s Bloemfontein leg of the Athletics South Africa (ASA) Speed Series.

National 100m record holder Akani Simbine set the tone over the weekend when he became the first South African to dip below 10 seconds and 20 seconds in the 100m and 200m on the same day at an Athletics Gauteng North league meeting on Saturday.

Simbine posted the fastest 100m on home soil, clocking 9.93 seconds before dipping below 20 seconds in the 200m sprint with a time of 19.95s.

Fellow Olympian, Clarence Munyai, broke Riaan Dempers’ 22-year-old junior national 200m record, setting a new African mark of 20.10 to finish second behind Simbine.

Munyai missed Simbine’s national junior record in the 100m by 0.01 with a time of 10.20 finishing in second place.

Now it is Munyai’s training partner Gift Leotela who will take a stab at Simbine’s record when he lines up next to Van Niekerk.

It is the same venue where Van Niekerk last year dipped below 10 second for the first time, clocking 9.98 and becoming the first man to post sub-10, 20, and 44 second times in the 100m, 200m and 400m.

Van Niekerk opened his season in Bloemfontein at the end of January where he clocked 10.52 and 21.18 in the 100m and 200m.

The women’s 100m hurdles could also see Rikenette Steenkamp become only the second South African to dip below 13 seconds after a promising start to the season.

She has posted a wind-assisted time of 13.14 and followed it up with another good time of 13.24 within an hour of her first race at the Potchefstroom Varsity Cup meeting.

Steenkamp will go up against Maryke Brits, who posted a personal best of 13.65 at the same meeting.

Olympic long jump silver medallist Luvo Manyonga is expected to compete on home soil for the first time since his feat at the Rio Olympics.

Shortly after the Games, Manyonga came within two centimetres of Khotso Mokoena’s national long jump record with a winning leap of 8.48m in Brussels.

The Speed Series meeting will also feature the muchtalked-about relay teams and if ASA’s preliminary entry form is anything to go by; Van Niekerk, Leotlela, Emile Erasmus and Lebakeng Sesele will be running in the 4x100m.