Simbine ‘pretty happy’ with his time
RIO DE JANEIRO: Overshadowed by his close friend’s world record breaking feat, Akani Simbine did not mind the lack of interest in his own achievement on an amazing night for South African athletics at the Rio Olympics.
Wayde van Niekerk had just finished posing for photos after he set a new 400m world record, when Simbine was announced as part of a star-studded 100m final field.
Simbine beamed when his name was called out walking towards the start of the 100m race, where he would be joined by Jamaican world record holder Usain Bolt.
In that moment Simbine became the first SA male sprinter since Danie Joubert in Los Angeles 1932 to make it into the final of the 100m sprint at the Olympic Games.
Although there had been fears over his start, they seemed unjustified on the night as he rose to the occasion with the best reaction of all the fastest men in the world.
As the eight men sped towards the line, Simbine looked good for a bronze medal but was pipped to the line finishing in a close fifth place.
Simbine finished three hundredths of a second behind third-place winner Andre de Grasse of Canada, who clocked 9.91 seconds.
Bolt crossed the line for his third consecutive Olympic 100m title in a time of 9.81 with America’s Justin Gatlin crossing the finish second in 9.89.
It could easily have been a fourth place with former Jamaican world champion Yohan Blake only 0.01 faster over the line.
Clocking two sub-10 second times in as many nights, Simbine demonstrated that he had well and truly arrived as one of the world’s fastest men.
“I am really happy, I am just a bit disappointed that I lost that bronze medal, I had a look at the replay and I realised that I (was) actually in third spot,” Simbine said. “Remembering in the race I was running in third spot but I tightened over the last five metres, and that is where I lost it.
“I’m pretty happy with the place I got and the time I ran at the Olympics.”
Simbine said he was calm going into the athletics’ blue-ribband event as his first goal was to make the final.
“After the semi I thought (the) deal (was) done, I got into the final and now I just have to go and run, and take it easy,” Simbine said.
Simbine went into the Games as the fifth fastest man in the world with the national record of 9.89 he posted in Hungary last month.
Speaking of Van Niekerk’s world record breaking achievement and Olympic title winning run, Simbine said he knew his friend would be able to reach that feat.
“Wayde is amazing, spending time three months with him every year, I knew he would be this great, and I always knew he could break the record,” Simbine said.
“He was targeting it but he didn’t bring it up much because that’s just adding pressure, he just knew what he needed to do and we believed in what he could do.
“It was just a thing of he said he was going to break the world record and there he did it.”