Wayde van Niekerk says he cannot wait to belt out “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at Anfield on Tuesday when his beloved Liverpool take on Stoke.
Olympic champion and 400m world record-holder Van Niekerk is on holiday in the UK, and watched a live Liverpool game for the first time in the Merseyside derby against Everton at Goodison Park last Monday.
But now he is getting set for the biggest thrill of them all for a Reds fan – a game at Anfield. “I am extremely excited. I cannot wait. Just listening to the crowd sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’… I am really looking forward to it and I want the days to go by!” Van Niekerk told the official Liverpool website after visiting their Melwood training base on Friday, where he met manager Jurgen Klopp and the players.
“I tend to sing it at home in front of the screen where nobody sees me! I will try to join in with the crowd and just experience the atmosphere because I know it’s going to be massive. I know our stadium is much bigger now with the Main Stand, so I am really looking forward to that moment.”
Van Niekerk was part of the crowd that were about to accept a stalemate at Goodison Park on Monday, but then Senegal’s Sadio Mané stepped up to grab all three points with a 94th-minute strike to win it for Liverpool over the arch-rivals.
“The derby was quite intense, very intense. We were literally sat in the middle of the Everton and Liverpool fans and you could feel the tension. I’m not someone who celebrates much, even if you look at my races and so on, I’m not someone who loses my mind. But when Mané’s goal went in, I lost my mind and I was in the crowd with everyone else, enjoying the goal,” the 24-year-old said.
“I think I still have to pinch myself. It’s similar to me breaking the record – you know you’re here, but at the same time you need to pinch yourself and say ‘Did it really happen? Am I really here?’. I am someone who lives for the moment, so just being able to experience this is something I am cherishing, taking notes of and I am really just letting it happen and letting it be. It’s been amazing.”
Liverpool will take on Stoke at 7.15pm SA time on Tuesday, and Van Niekerk stated that he tries to watch every game, either online or on TV. But meeting Klopp and the likes of Daniel Sturridge, Jordan Henderson and Philippe Coutinho on Friday meant a lot to him, and he admitted that he was a bit star-struck.
The most important thing he did was to embrace Klopp. “The moment I met Klopp, I was like ‘I need to get myself a hug!’. Just that love is what kind of attached me to it. Also the fact that Liverpool are a massive team in the league; it’s a team that everyone fears, and I think that’s why I feel so attached to the club. I did (hug Klopp)! That is the first thing I did when I got here. I went and did it myself, I didn’t ask! I just went in for the hug!” Van Niekerk said.
“I want to speak football and he wanted to speak athletics! We were speaking athletics and football. But I don’t know, to me at that moment I was really star-struck and really felt the appreciation for just being here. I was a bit shy to stop the guys and ask them for a picture, but I am just happy to be here.”
The biggest moment of his career, in Rio, also had a Liverpool touch to it, and Van Niekerk was quick to explain how it helped him to produce a time of 43.03 seconds to win Olympic gold on August 14.
“I watched the Arsenal-Liverpool game and it definitely lifted up my spirits a lot! When you’re an athlete, you’re laying around in your room and you’re isolated, doing your own thing (before a race),” he said.
“It took my mind away from the race that was happening later in the evening. The game was during the afternoon and my race was late at night. For about two hours I could think football, I could think Liverpool and with that we got the win, so I was quite happy and joyful.
“My mood was quite high for quite a bit, so it took my mind away from the fact that I was racing later. I remember telling my girlfriend afterwards, ‘I’ve got a race later, I need to take a nap and get ready for the race!’ But Liverpool did play a big role in my mood that day.”