South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk smashed Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record in the 400 meters at the Rio Olympics, running an astonishing 43.03 seconds, shaving 0.15 seconds off Johnson’s record.
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Van Niekerk’s performance was all the more remarkable as he took the eighth lane from where it is hard to see the movement of the opponents. His winning time at the Beijing world championships past year was 43.48. Winning the 400 meter finale is not the first record breaking feat this 24 year old has accomplished, in March, Van Nierkek became the first ever athlete to run the 100 meters in less than ten seconds. Yes.
Johnson’s mark had been one of the longest standing records in athletics, having stood since 1999.
He is a local South African boy, know a world record holder and Olympic champion, and we all need to celebrate that, says Swartz.
It looked, of course, as if he had gone off stupidly fast through the first 200m, and the expectation was that Kirani James, the defending champion from Grenada, and LaShawn Merritt of the United States – who fought like pitbulls in the middle lanes – would haul Van Niekerk in through the bends.
It didn’t happen. The South African in fact went faster in the second half of the race, slingshotting into the home straight in a blur of limbs.
Now, he’s the fastest ever. It was, as Johnson said on television commentary, “a massacre”. And Bolt whose friend with the youngster said he had predicted his victory too, “I wasn’t really surprised he got it”, he told the BBC. Van Niekerk said. “I’ve got a lot to brag about!”
His rivals were somewhere between stunned and aghast afterwards. “I’m just grateful that I can trust in her work and I think it speaks for itself”, the sprinter said, per Sport24. It is what it is. “He ran his heart out”.
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She says the humble person you see on the world stage is just the way he is, and he has always been a good child. It is something I thought I could do, but never did.
