Now Wayde wants to burn up the track in 300m
JOHANNESBURG: Conquering every sprint distance seems to be Wayde van Niekerk’s chosen path to greatness as he looks to add the 300m world-best time when he lines up in race over this distance in Ostrava tonight.
Buttressed by his 400m world record and title-winning runs at the 2015 World Championships and Rio Olympic Games, Van Niekerk has the freedom and confidence to take on the shorter distances.
Boasting personal best times of 9.94 seconds in the 100m and 19.84 over the 200m, he holds the world record of 43.03 in the 400m.
Van Niekerk is the only man to have to have run sub10, -20, and -44 times over the three distances.
Last year Van Niekerk smashed his national 300m record when he crossed the line in 31.03 seconds in Kingston, Jamaica which launched him into third place on the world all-time list.
Van Niekerk’s time is a fraction off Jamaican sprinting legend Usain Bolt’s time of 30.97, while Michael Johnson tops the list with the 30.85 he set in Pretoria back in 2000.
If everything goes according to plan, the record will once again change hands from Johnson to Van Niekerk and will retain a South African connection.
Van Niekerk’s form this season, particularly over the 200m, suggests he could give Johnson’s world best a proper scare.
The South African last year improved his national mark from 2015 by 0.60 and will be looking to shave more than 0.18 off his best to erase another Johnson record.
According to athletics statistician and coach Pierre-Jean Vazel, Van Niekerk clocked 31.0 at the 300m mark in his world-record run in the onelap sprint at the Rio Olympics.
Lining up next to Van Niekerk, compatriot Clarence Munyai hopes the Olympic champion will drag him to the junior world best.
Munyai holds the world lead over the rarely run 300m distance, with the national junior best of 32.87 he posted at the University of Johannesburg earlier this year.
Six South African athletes will be in action in Ostrava including short-hurdles specialists Antonio Alkana and Rikenette Steenkamp, women’s sprinting ace Alyssa Conley and Jaco Rozani.
Steenkamp recently came painstakingly close to dipping below 13 seconds in the 100m hurdles in Velenje, Slovenia where she won in a time of 13.03.
She fell just short of posting the B qualifying standard of 12.98, but would have to break the national record to meet the A standard of 12.77.
Alkana in turn will be looking to get close to the 110m national record of 13.11 he set in Prague at the beginning of this month.
Conley is still chasing a world qualifying time and will be targeting a time of 22.65 200m to book her place to the global showpiece in London in August.