Two of South Africa’s top sprinters struggled to repeat their recent heroics at a wet and gloomy London Diamond League meeting on Saturday afternoon, as 100m star Akani Simbine’s winning streak ended and 400m ace Zakithi Nene had to settle for bronze.
The 100m at London Stadium with a capacity crowd of 60 000 had been billed as a showdown between Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles and 200m champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana.
Yet the star-studded field – with Simbine boasting the world lead this year – was upstaged by Jamaican Oblique Seville, who took the gold in a fast 9.86 seconds. Lyles finished second, in 10 seconds flat, while British runner Zharnel Hughes was third in 10.02.
Simbine was fifth, in a time of 10.08 while Tebogo finished in seventh.
There was another upset result in the 400m, where British runner Charles Dobson secured the win in a personal best time of 44.14sec with a late surge. His compatriot, and pre-race favourite Matthew Hudson-Smith, the Olympic silver medallist, took silver in 44.27 and Nene the bronze in 44.29.
The race marked a return to competition for the South African one-lap star after a six-week absence.
His coach Victor Vaz feels Nene – who boasts this year’s world-leading time of 43.76 at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi – may have paid the price for a relatively pedestrian first 200m, by his high standards.
The official race statistics bear testimony to that, listing his 200m split time at 21.23.
“He was a little bit casual in the first 200 and Hudson-Smith on his inside closed the gap, and that told me Zak was relaxed,” Vaz told Independent Media Sport exclusively from his KZN base after the race.
“If you look at the timing splits, you can see that when he ran that Kenyan best or world’s fastest time, he ran a sub-21 for the 200, and this time he was just over the 21. And if you look at Hudson-Smith’s 200 time, it was faster (21.03). So he closed the gap.
“And Zak usually is up in the first three when he comes out of the 300, and he wasn’t this time. He had enough in the tank, but just not enough to possibly get him into a higher position.”
The veteran coach, who lives on the KZN North Coast, still takes comfort in the fact that the 27-year-old Nene continues to post impressive times over the one-lap race.
“If you look at the times, they look phenomenal. Not a single 400m runner in the world except for Zak has run under 44, so maybe it was the day, maybe the weather, maybe the wet tartan, but I don’t think it would have affected Zak. I just think he was a little bit casual in that first 200, that’s all. But it was a good race.”
