Cape Town - He ran a season’s best time of 10.11 in Prague last week, but now SA 100m champion Henricho Bruintjies will come up against the fastest man in the world this year. And no, it’s not Usain Bolt.
Frenchman Jimmy Vicaut has a time of 9.86 to his name in 2016, which he ran in Montreuil in France last week as well, and is getting into his stride for the Rio Olympics as that was just his second race of the year.
The 24-year-old is appearing to be a real contender to reach the 100m final at least in Brazil later this year, as he also produced a 9.86 personal best in 2015.
Jamaican superstar Bolt won in 9.88 at the Racers Grand Prix on home soil in Kingston on Saturday, where SA record holder Akani Simbine ended sixth in a good time of 10.01, not far off his national mark of 9.96.
So Bruintjies would want to run a sub-10 seconds time when he lines up at a meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland on Tuesday alongside Vicaut, as well as a few top British athletes such as James Dasaolu and Richard Kilty, and the Ivory Coast’s Wilfried Koffi and Ben Youssef Meité.
The 23-year-old Bruintjies, who hails from Klapmuts in the Western Cape, will be out to put down a marker ahead of the African Championships in Durban from June 22-26.
SA women’s sprint champion Alyssa Conley is in a similar boat, and she comes into the Swiss event full of confidence after running a new personal best of 11.23 in Gavardo, Italy in late May.
Conley’s main competition could be in the shape of Asha Philip from Great Britain, who has a PB of 11.10, and Swiss favourite Mujinga Kambundji, whose national record is 11.07.
But the South African who has the most at stake in Lucerne will be 400m hurdler Cornel Fredericks. The former SA champion has yet to run an Olympic qualifying time of 49.40, with a season’s best of 49.75.
There are already three others who have qualified for Rio - LJ van Zyl (48.67), Lindsay Hanekom (49.03) and Le Roux Hamman (49.24) - and there are only three places available in the 400m hurdles for the Olympics.
Fredericks only has until July 11 to run 49.40, but is confident he can get there. Fredericks has a personal best of 48.14, and came fifth at the 2011 world championships in Daegu, South Korea, while he was also the African champion in 2014.
“My training has been going really well. What is more important is that I am injury-free. So it is just a question of staying focused and making sure that I do the small things right when I race. I know some people may presume that I am under pressure to get the qualification out of the way, but I’m not obsessed about it,” the man from Worcester told the Sascoc website on Monday.
“I have proven to myself that I can come up with a good race when it matters. What is more important is the fact that I have not competed in more than five races over the past two years. It is one thing to train and something else to race. My body has to get used to racing again. This I can promise, I still have the hunger to succeed and I firmly believe that I still have two or three good years of racing left.”
Apart from Bruintjies, Conley and Fredericks, there are four other South Africans who will take part in Lucerne on Tuesday - Antonio Alkana (110m hurdles), Orazio Cremona (shot put), Wenda Nel (400m hurdles) and Maryke Brits (long jump).