World champion Van Niekerk scorched around the Rio track to finish five metres clear of the pair in 43.03 seconds, bettering Michael Johnson’s long-standing mark by 0.15 of a second.
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If times were the only criteria, Van Niekerk even stole the show from mighty Usain Bolt on Sunday.
“Oh my God! From lane eight, a world record”, Johnson said on the BBC. “That was a massacre from Wayde van Niekerk”. Usually guys slow down a bit in the last hundred but he just kept going. “LaShawn Merritt was shaking his head, thinking ‘I can’t do anything with that'”. “I have never seen anything from 200 to 400 like that”. “Usain Bolt will be retiring soon, this could be the next star of the sport”. “This is a great era and I’m proud to be part of it”.
The South African had made his presence felt for the first time with the 400m world title past year in Beijing in a then personal-best time of 43.48.
With a third Olympic gold medal in his sights, Merritt went faster on Sunday with an impressive 43.85, while the classy James fared even better, registering 43.76 to improve on the time that brought him gold in London four years ago.
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Van Niekerk marked himself as the leading contender for Rio when he led home Merritt and James with an exceptional run to win gold at last year’s world championships in Beijing, where the podium again all ran under 44 seconds. “When you keep going like that obviously a world record is going to fall”. “At this moment I am just grateful for everything that happened tonight”, he said.
