The 24-year-old shaved off 0.15 seconds of Michael Johnson’s world record set at the Seville World Championships in 1999.
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South Africa’s Wayde Van Niekerk wins the men’s 400-meter final during the athletics competitions of the 2016 Summer Olympics at the Olympic stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016.
“I was over there (Jamaica) for about two weeks training”. “I’m happy to prove to the world I’m the best again and again”, he said, and no one could argue.
Yet van Niekerk was used to unexpected opportunities emerging from hard situations. Seriously, a great grandmother.
Born and raised in Cape Town Van Niekerk from a young age showed his aptitude for sport.
Many wondered whether she was equipped to handle a talent like van Niekerk and Botha was all too aware of the enormous responsibility she had undertaken.
“I really can’t comment on that race. I have never seen anything from 200 to 400 like that”, said Johnson.
“It is awesome. That was a massacre by van Niekerk”.
“Being out in lane eight helped him, he was away from James and Merritt”. It was also the second time in history that all eight runners broke 45 seconds.
“I can’t even tell you what happened in the race, I was blind all the way!” van Niekerk said.
Murray became the first tennis player in Olympic history with two singles gold medals, winning his second in a row by wearing down Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5, in a final that lasted a tad more than 4 hours Sunday. His coach is his 74-year-old great grandmother Ans Botha.
“She has played a huge role in who I am today and kept me very disciplined and very focused on the role and who I need to be”, he told reporters. The unlikely combination teamed up three years ago, the move paying dramatic dividends.
Merritt, who was Olympic champion at the Beijing Games in 2008 before serving a 21-month ban for testing positive for a banned steroid in 2010, hailed van Niekerk.
“It was a insane race, a great moment in history”, Merritt said.
World record holder Genzebe Dibaba was the fastest qualifier for the women’s 1500m final, while Allyson Felix ran a season’s best of 49.67secs to top the list of finalists for the women’s 400m.
Impressing hugely on his Olympic debut, Matthew Hudson Smith had clocked a 44.48 PB to move from 13th to No.6 on the United Kingdom all-time list to make the final and there he ran 44.61 for eighth.
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“‘I thought I was going well on the back straight and then I got to 250m and usually I have another gear and this time I didn’t”, he said.
