Back when I was new to the sport in the early oughts, I started out with the quarter-mile. Even if I eventually shifted focus to the sprint hurdles in the subsequent years, I maintained a keen sense of interest in the 400m dash – and Michael Johnson’s legendary 43.18s world record in Sevilla set in 1999.
Although this a stretched comparison, Michael Johnson was my Usain Bolt. Johnson’s then world records in the 200m and the 400m were the stuff of athletics lore, clockings that elite athletes back in my day could only dream about.
Then a guy named Wayde van Niekerk stole the show in Rio and decimated a loaded field, running roughshod over one of the most revered sprinting records in recent history.
Having been away from the sport the past four years, my knowledge of track & field current events is at all-time low. So I did a quick Google check on the South African speedster and my jaw literally dropped when I stumbled upon an article about Van Niekerk’s unrivaled sub-10, sub-20, and sub-44 clockings in the 100m, 200m, and 400m dashes.
From the outermost lane, Van Niekerk ran like a rocket when the starting gun fired. While Kirani James, the defending Olympic champion, and LaShawn Merritt were battling it out in the middle lanes, the South African blazed around the other seven athletes in a much faster orbit. There was no catching the speedster from down under. That scintillating final saw the top three dip below 44-seconds for the first time in Olympic history.
Michael Johnson’s reaction to Van Niekerk’s record-breaking feat says it all: “Oh my God! From lane eight, a world record. He took it out so quick. I have never seen anything from 200 to 400 like that. That was a massacre from Wayde van Niekerk. He just put those guys away.”
Enough said.
Like this:
Like Loading...
