Five years of injury and setbacks have plagued his career since the 2017 triumph in London, which included elimination at the semi-final stage at Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021). But the world record holder has just qualified for Friday’s 400m World Champions...
If anyone was counting, and Wayde van Niekerk was, it has been 1,786 days – or close to five years – since the 400m world record holder made a major athletics final.
Five years of injury and setbacks have plagued his career since the 2017 triumph in London, which included elimination at the semi-final stage at Tokyo 2020 .last week, that he was confident of making the final, but also of improving as the year goes on, it’s vindication for the hard work he has put into his training base in Florida.Van Niekerk finished second behind American Champion Allison in his semi-final, to book an automatic qualifying place in the final. Van Niekerk’s time of 44.
As it turned out, 44.75 was enough. With two more competitive races behind him now, it will be interesting to see how quickly Van Niekerk can go in the final. “Everyone knows what I’m capable of, including myself,” Van Niekerk said. “What happens if the one day you take me for granted is the one day everything comes together for me? I know that I’m respected and because of that it pushes me to break through barriers because they want to beat me.
Norah Jeruto set a World Championships record en route to winning the women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase gold while China’s Feng Bin outdid Olympic champion Valerie Allman in the discus final. “I am so excited and I have to say all opponents did a very good job today,” said Feng, who finished 17th in Tokyo last year. “I did not expect this result coming to Eugene, I just wanted to show my best.”
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