South Africa’s 400m world record holder Wayde van Niekerk beat 100m ace Akani Simbine in a 200m race on Tuesday.
Running in the Athletics South Africa invitational meeting at the Ruimsig Athletics Stadium in Johannesburg, Van Niekerk posted a superb time of 20.10 seconds and says of his feat: “I’m very grateful for the race. This is what I need – I haven’t been running against quality, quality athletes in a while. So, I’m really grateful that I get to compete again.
“I mean, this is basically the best in the country at the moment, so it was a real blessing to be here.
“[The time is] amazing. I have trained very hard – I have put in all the hard work at training.
“But it is a different thing to execute on the track, so I am glad that I did it.”