Revved up for record
Wayde gets set for 300m attempt on fast track, in good weather
HE’S got one world record, but by tonight Wayde van Niekerk could own a second – in the seldom-run 300m event. The South African 400m world record holder will line up in expected good weather conditions in Ostrava in the Czech Republic, with, among others, compatriot Clarence Munyai – who hopes the Olympic champion will drag him to the junior world best.
Van Niekerk, who has looked sharp over 200m in recent weeks, will be taking a stab at the three-quarter lap event in the presence of world short sprint king Usain Bolt (running the 100m), who is one of only two men to have run 300m faster than him. The other is holder of the world record, Michael Johnson, whose 400m best Van Niekerk smashed in winning gold at the Rio Olympics last year.
The South African is the only man to have to have run sub-10, -20, and -44 times over the 100m, 200m and 400m.
Last year Van Niekerk smashed his national 300m record when he ran 31.03 seconds in Kingston, Jamaica.
Van Niekerk’s time is a fraction off Jamaican sprinting legend Bolt’s best of 30.97, while Johnson tops the list with the world best of 30.85 he set in Pretoria in 2000.
The South African last year improved his national mark by 0.60 and tonight will be looking to shave more than 0.18 off his best to erase another Johnson record. And, according to athletics statistician and coach Pierre-Jean Vazel, Van Niekerk had clocked 31.0 at the 300m mark in his world-record run in the onelap sprint in Rio.
Eight reigning Olympic champions will line up at the 56th edition of the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava tonight, an event capped by Bolt’s second 100m outing of his final season.
The race will mark Bolt’s fifth 100m appearance at this IAAF World Challenge meeting and ninth overall, serving as a goodbye from the triple double Olympic champion to the eastern Czech city that was among the first to welcome him when he joined the professional ranks well over a decade ago.
For that, he said, he’ll be forever grateful. “It’s the fans, they always come here. No matter how cold it is,” Bolt said at a press conference in Ostrava on Monday.
“I have been to many meetings around the world and sometimes when the weather is really bad people do not show up. But every time I’ve been here, it was always a full stadium. And for me it really matters because it pushes me to do my best.”
In his only appearance this year, Bolt ran 10.03 in Kingston in a stadium also full for the occasion. And, as Bolt’s career winds down, there has been much speculation about who will inherit his tag of “fastest man on earth”.
Van Niekerk is a contender, but he may turn out to be better over 400m and 200m than in the 100m race.
Canadian Andre de Grasse, rated by many as sprinting’s heir apparent, took 100m bronze and 200m silver behind Bolt in Rio last year.
De Grasse, 22, is also being tipped to spoil Bolt’s farewell party at the World Championships in London in August by beating him.
If anybody needed proof of his quality, De Grasse ran a wind-assisted time of 9.69 in the 100m in Stockholm nine days ago.
Bolt was asked whether he could keep ALSO INSIDE: Hot Chile in semis, P22 Leyds gets a ‘lift’, P23 Canes hold Lions, P23 up with the Canadian on Monday.
‘I am the fastest man in the world so I will say yes to that,’ said the eight-time Olympic champion.
Meanwhile six South African athletes will be in action in Ostrava including short-hurdles specialists Antonio Alkana and Rikenette Steenkamp, and women’s sprinting ace Alyssa Conley.