Back injury puts paid to Wayde’s season

DOUBLE world champion Wayde van Niekerk’s season has come to an endbecause of a recurring back injury and will not line up in the Diamond League final in Zurich.

“This injury has plagued me throughout the summer and I had to receive treatment from Dr Muller-Wohlfahrt,” Van Niekerk said in a statement.

“Obviously you don’t want your competitors to know if you are struggling in any way, so I’ve kept it quiet until this point.”

Van Niekerk was South Africa’s top performer at the recent IAAF World Championships in London where he retained his 400m title and added the 200m silver medal.

Van Niekerk said he felt the back injury flare up again on his return to training this week.

The 400m world record-holder and his coach Ans Botha decided to witdraw from competition as a precaution in the build-up to the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, in April.

He was set to line up in Zurich for a shot at becoming the IAAF Diamond League Champion which comes with $50 000 in prize money.

“I am bitterly disappointed I won’t be competing as I haven’t won a Diamond League Final,” Van Niekerk said.

“But we feel it is in my best interest to recover fully, in order to take on the 2018 season at full strength.”

Van Niekerk also secretly battled back and hamstring injuries in the buildup to last year’s 400m final at the Rio Olympics but he pushed through the pain to shatter American icon Michael Johnson’s longstanding world record clocking 43.03.

After Rio, Van Niekerk received treatment from renowned German doctor Hans-Wilhelm Mueller Wohlfahrt, who also had Jamaican world 100m and 200m recordholder Usain Bolt as a patient.

The Zurich race was billed as the 400m final that never happened at the world championships after Botswana’s Isaac Makwala was controversially withdrawn after showing symptoms of an infectious disease.

Makwala missed out on the 400m after he was placed under 48-hours quarantine following a confirmed outbreak of norovirus among athletes in the hotel he was staying in London.

Conspiracy theorists suggested the IAAF’s withdrawal of Makwala from Monday’s 200m heats was part of a dubious scheme to give Van Niekerk easy passage to the podium in both the 200m and 400m.

Although Makwala missed out on the 400m he did feature in the 200m final where he finished in sixth place despite going into the championships with the fastest time this season.