He made it possible after beating silver medalist Grenada’s Kirani James, the London 2012 champion, and bronze medalist American LaShawn Merritt.
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South African runner Wayde van Niekerk has won gold for the men’s 400m event at #Rio2016. Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula tweeted, “Wayde is South Africa’s current Sportstar and Sportsman of the year 2015”.
Since the two teamed up, van Niekerk’s achievements have racked up dramatically.
“To The van Niekerk family thank you for giving South Africa a star thank you Mammie @WaydeDreamer”, Mbalula tweeted.
Rio de Janeiro, Aug. 16 (GNA/dpa) – Wayde van Niekerk is the only man in the world who has run the 100 metres below 10 seconds, the 200m sub-19 and the 400m faster than 44 seconds.
“On behalf of the Free State provincial government and the people of the Free State, I wish to congratulate van Niekerk for representing both the country and the province very well at the Olympics”, said Magashule.
Early in their relationship, she had the prescience to switch Van Niekerk from the 200m – the event he won in the national championships aged 18 – to the 400m, as she was concerned about the number of injuries he was picking up. “There’s no words. I know Michael Johnson’s not happy, though”.
Van Niekerk was, understandably, all smiles after the race, and revealed it wasn’t just his gold medal-winning performance that had him delighted.
The South African had made his presence felt for the first time with the 400m world title a year ago in Beijing in a then personal-best time of 43.48.
“Last year he was dead at this point; he couldn’t even get up off the ground”, Johnson said in his commentary. “I was running blind all the way”, he would say later.
Niekerk is trained by Ans Botha, a 74-year-old great-grandmother who has been coaching track and field since the 1960s.
Botha didn’t exactly rule it out, saying “That secret I wouldn’t allow to come out”.
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“This year I was hoping that I was in good shape when my coach told me that they were going to put on a 300m”. I thought “wow, that’s just brilliant”. “I have never seen anything from 200m to 400m like that”, Johnson said while commentating for the BBC.
