A view of London’s World Champs

IT MAY not have been a golden one but Wayde van Niekerk still walked away with a 200400m double at the IAAF World Championships in London, adding the 200m silver to his one-lap title yesterday.

Van Niekerk became the first South African athlete to win two individual medals at the same world championships.

The South African sprinting sensation came out of the bend shoulder-to-shoulder with Turkish athlete Ramil Guliyev.

As the duo tussled over the final metres, Guliyev edged ahead of the South African to cross the line first in a time of 20.09 seconds.

Van Niekerk dipped at the line in a time of 20.11s for a photo finish with Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago who bagged bronze with the same time.

With the silver, Van Niekerk ensured South Africa’s best ever haul at a world championships with two gold, a silver, and two bronze.

The South African attempted to become only the fourth person in history to achieve the 200-400m sweep at a world championship or Olympic Games.

South Africa’s one-lap wonder proved to be equally adept over the 200m distance, working hard for one of the most difficult milestones in world athletics going through six days of competitive racing in the heats, semi-finals, and finals in both distances.

It was an audacious attempt by the South African trying to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Michael Johnson, who achieved the golden double at the 1995 world championships.

Earlier, Caster Semenya comfortably advanced into the 800m semi-final as she looks to complete her own double at the championships.

Semenya produced her customery kick as she came out of the final bend to cross the line first in a time of two minutes, 01.33 seconds (2:01.33).

The Olympic champion lined up in the two-lap race only two days after she raced to a gutsy bronze medal in the 1 500m.

Lining up in the same semifinal as defending women’s 200m champion Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands, Justine Palframan failed to advance as she finished the race in seventh place in a time of 23.21 seconds.

Meanwhile, javelin thrower Rocco van Rooyen missed out on a spot in tonight’s final with the South African falling well short of the qualifying mark of 83m posting a best heave of 74.02m.

High-flying long-jumper Luvo Manyonga is willing to go to dizzying heights to break the world record and will be looking for some assistance from the rarefied air of the French Alps to achieve this.

The alpine resort of Tignes in south-eastern France, will host some of the world’s best long jumpers next week where it has purposely built what should be the highest jumping pits on the planet at 3 032m in altitude.

Manyonga became South Africa’s first long jump world champion over the weekend, adding the senior title to the junior gold he won in 2010.

The South African long-jump ace shared the podium with compatriot Ruswahl Samaai at the World Championships on Saturday, winning the country’s first double-medal haul in the same final at the global showpiece.

Manyonga produced a winning jump of 8.48m on his second attempt, with American Jarrion Lawson finishing second with a best attempt of 8.44m, while Samaai bagged the bronze with his 8.32m.

Speaking days after winning his maiden senior world championship title, Manyonga said there was no time for celebrations as he still had a few more boxes to tick off in the season.

“After the competition there is almost no high, everything just remains the same because we had a plan before we came here,” Manyonga said.

“Becoming world champion is just the start, I will be on a high when I finish the Diamond League final. Only then can I relax.”

“I will be jumping at 3 000 metres above sea level, where I will be on a mountain (next week).”

Manyonga’s coach Neil Cornelius believes if his charge does not set a new world record in Tignes, he would do it somewhere in the near future.

“It is going to happen, eventually, I am very positive we will get a massive distance there (Tignes),” Cornelius said.

Since breaking the South African and African records and consistently jumping over 8.60 metres, Manyonga has spoken about breaking American Mike Powell’s world mark of 8.95m, set at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo.

Boasting a personal best of 8.65m and steeled by his worldtitle winning performance in London, Manyonga will be bullish about getting close to the world record.

Cornelius said although he believed Manyonga had the ability to break the record, they were first looking for more consistent performances.

“We don’t just want one massive jump, we want consistent, natural improvements and things that stick,” Cornelius said.