Bursting out of the blocks in lane eight, Wayde van Niekerk didn’t see another runner during the entire Olympic 400-meter final. He was wrong about that, very wrong. 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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RIO DE JANEIRO Win or lose, Usain Bolt was always going to dominate the Olympic headlines on Sunday but Wayde van Niekerk offered his embattled sport some hope for the future beyond the Jamaican’s retirement with a stunning world record on the Rio track.
Bolt was quick to congratulate van Niekerk, with the latter revealing he had been inspired by the world’s fastest man during a training camp in Jamaica.
James, a wonderful champion at London 2012 who might have been expected to dominate the distance for years, was incredulous at such a performance from the outside lane.
“I felt very alone at the end”. “It gave me so much motivation to keep pushing”. I dove for the finish line.
“He was somebody I was trying to gauge off of but he just wouldn’t slow down”.
Van Niekerk’s time was.73 seconds faster than silver medalist Kirami James of Grenada. “Tonight he said: “I told you you can do it”. “I’ll take it and get a day rest and get ready for the 200”. A Cape Town boy, he is trained by a 75-year-old coach, Ans Botha, who was in the stadium to see her ‘boy’s smash a world record that stood for 17 years.
Luvo Manyonga won silver in the men’s long jump, reaching a distance of 8.37m, 1cm shy of gold victor Jeff Henderson. He could have very well have run negative splits, meaning that he ran faster in that second 200 than he ran in the first 200, which would make this even more incredible. Seriously, a great grandmother. “She’s played a huge role in what I am today”.
“Achieving what I just did, I think the sky is the limit”.
With this victory also, Niekerk becomes the first person to win an Olympic 400m title from the 8th lane.
“I’m really happy for him, I’m really proud of him”.
And watching this great event was another Olympic champion and world record holder – Usain Bolt. “These are unbelievable guys.
I learned from them”, he said. “LaShawn Merritt was shaking his head, thinking ‘I can’t do anything with that'”. He said he was able to do so partly because he had God – and the people of South Africa – on his side. “I’m still amazed and I still have to pinch myself about what happened”.
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Van Niekerk was born prematurely at 29 weeks.
