Kevin McCallum
JOHANNESBURG: It has taken six years and 43.48 seconds, but South Africa have another athletics world champion in Wayde van Niekerk, who won the 400 metres title in Beijing yesterday with a run that ranked him amongst the greats.
His 43.48 seconds means that he is the fourth-quickest man in the history of the event and the fastest of the year. It was good enough to hold off LaShawn Merritt, the American and defending world champion, who was second, and the Olympic champion, Kirani James, who was third. It was a run in which the 23-year old Van Niekerk dug so deep he had to be carried off the track on a stretcher and into an ambulance to hospital.
It was reported that his vital signs were unstable, but AP reported that Peter Lourens, the head of the South African team, said Van Niekerk was “okay. It’s exhaustion. They are taking him to hospital for observation.”
It was a run that was praised on social media from across the sporting spectrum by the likes of Ernie Els, Joel Stransky, Ryan Sandes and Corne Krige. Running World South Africa editor Mike Finch tweeted that he was “shaking”.
It seems an age ago that Caster Semenya and the late Mbulaeni Mulaudzi were world champions in the 800m in 2009. South African athletics administration has been dysfunctional for some time, but the mess of the Semenya affair forced a change, which was then followed by another change. That Van Niekerk and his teammates have continued to improve and compete on the world stage despite this is a great credit to them, their coaches and clubs.
Van Niekerk, running from a middle lane, got a good start and as he hit the bend was in command, even if there was a worry he had gone out too hard too early. His finish, though, was the thing of champions as he held on and kept the gap he had earned as they hit the final finish straight. His last few steps were on exhausted, wobbly legs. He collapsed, but then recovered enough to pull his national flag around his shoulders for a celebration.
Before the final, Van Niekerk, who had won silver in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last year, said he was in Beijing to “win a medal”. “I think it would be quite big for my country as a whole because we’ve got quite a lot of potential, so it’s good showing everyone that we can do it. Like every other athlete going to Beijing, we all want to go for a medal, and my goal is that as well, to get a medal. But the world champs is a competition of its own, unlike the Diamond League. I have to be ready for that.”
At an IAAF Diamond League meeting in London recently, he was struggling halfway through the race having been overtaken by Botswana’s Isaac Makwala and US champion David Verburg.
“Timing his effort to perfection, he moved on to Makwala’s shoulder as they entered the straight and strode past, his two opponents unable to match his finishing kick as they paid for their early pace and were engulfed by a wave of lactic acid,” reported the IAAF website.
“If the speed of his Paris victory, when he became the first African in history to break 44 seconds, announced his burgeoning talent to the world, perhaps it was the measured manner of this London win that most clearly proved Van Niekerk will be a genuine contender for gold at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing next month.”
He won in 44.63 in London and afterwards collapsed over the barriers as his body fought to recover from the effort. “I just came here wanting to win. This was my last Diamond League race before the World Championships so I just wanted to finish it with a good time and feel confident.”
“The son of former athletes once denied the chance to compete internationally by the boycott of the apartheid regime that existed in South Africa prior to 1990, Van Niekerk has what he described as ‘sporty genes; and dedicates his performances to his parents who are ‘with me every step that I take’,” reported the IAAF. “Not surprisingly, he is also keenly aware of what a world medal would mean to his country.”