He may not have won, but Akani Simbine proved once again that he is one of the world’s top sprinters by finishing second in the 100m at the Paris Diamond League on Saturday night.
The South African record-holder, who ended in fifth position in the 100m final at the Rio Olympics, is winding down his season with the Paris meet and his last event of the year will be the Zurich Diamond League on Thursday.
His coach Werner Prinsloo told Independent Media ahead of the Paris meet that his athlete would not be pushing too hard for a quick time as they are delighted with Simbine’s performance in Rio, and that he was going to enjoy himself in his last two races of the season.
But the 22-year-old produced a strong run at the Stade de France, where he was up against a formidable field that included Frenchman Jimmy Vicaut – the fastest man in the race this year with a 9.86 – as well as veteran Kim Collins, American Michael Rodgers and Ivory Coast’s Ben Youssef Meite.
It was the 40-year-old Collins from St Kitts and Nevis who made his customary quick start out of the blocks, and he was chased by Simbine in the first half of the race.
Just around the 60-metre mark, Simbine – in Lane 4 – turned on the power and started to pull away from Collins and the rest of the field, but he was matched on his outside by Meite in Lane 7.
The South African still had the edge going into the last 20 metres, but Meite pushed ahead with about five metres to go to pip Simbine on the line with a time of 9.96, which equalled his national record set earlier this year.
It was some form of “revenge” for Meite after he ended sixth in the Olympic final behind Simbine, who clocked exactly 10 seconds to finish second in Paris on Saturday. Dutch athlete Churandy Martina claimed third spot in 10.01.
“Doing 9.96 tonight is just amazing,” Meite told the Diamond League website. “I didn’t expect to run so fast after Rio. I’m surprised and very happy. I equalled my personal best. After Rio, I thought I was too tired, but actually I’m feeling in a great shape.”
The highlight of the night came in the women’s 3 000m steeplechase, where Bahrain’s 19-year-old Olympic gold medallist Ruth Jebet set a new world record of 8:52.78, beating the previous mark of 8:58.81 by Russian Gulnara Galinka in 2008.
“I’m very happy,” Jebet said. “I tried many times to beat the world record, and today we decided to push each other to go for a good time. I was not expecting such a big difference with the record. I think I finished my season today.”
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