Where was Makwala?

This was a spectacle that captivated as much for the brilliance of Wayde van Niekerk as for the rumblings of diplomatic rancour.

While Van Niekerk, the Olympic champion and world recordholder, won his third global 400m title yesterday with a stunning time of 43.98secs, the South African’s feat was overshadowed by a remarkable 24 hours of claim and counter-claim over the withdrawal of his chief rival, Botswana’s Isaac Makwala.

For all that Van Niekerk dazzled on the track, athletics still somehow managed to shoot itself in the foot by offering no coherent account of why Makwala had not shared the occasion with him.

The athlete said he was in condition to take part, despite throwing up in the call room before the previous evening’s 200m, but he was dramatically denied entry to the London Stadium by a British public health edict.

Since he was suspected of carrying the norovirus, after an outbreak had swept through the hotel where he was staying, it was decided that he could not risk contaminating other athletes.

Van Niekerk, broadly recognised as the outstanding symbol of athletics’ future, deserved better than to have his accomplishment tempered by such confusion.

For if you were designing the perfect sprinter, he would look a great deal like the self-deprecating 25-year-old from Bloemfontein.

Slender but lightning fast, van Niekerk has a superb versatility, enabling him both to break 10 seconds for 100m and to set his jaw-dropping benchmark of 43.03 over one lap.