Wayde van Niekerk claimed his last outstanding major scalp as he beat reigning world champion LaShawn Merritt in the 400m semifinals in Beijing last night to book his spot in tomorrow's final. The South African sprinter has steadily picked off the "Big Three" of the one-lap race, one by one.First he stunned Olympic champion Kirani James of Grenada in France, then Botswana's African champion Isaac Makwala in London, and now Merritt in the semifinal. Van Niekerk now faces them altogether for his first shot at a major trophy.On one of the best nights for South Africa in the championships so far, 400m hurdler Wenda Nel also qualified for her final tomorrow night.Nel, 27, who has had her share of bad luck over the years, nearly burst into tears when she knew she had progressed into the eight-lane showdown."When I crossed the finish line I felt like I wanted to cry. 'Did I really do this?'," said Nel, who was second in her heat behind American Cassandra Tate in 54.63sec, the fifth-best time of the night.She failed to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics and was disqualified from last year's Commonwealth Games.Now she has achieved the qualifying time to make it into what will be her first Games, Rio 2016, but right now she's looking to go even faster."If I can execute the perfect race plan I think I'm going to surprise myself. You never know, a sub-54?"Van Niekerk was less talkative afterwards: "I came here to win a medal."He will probably have to go faster than his 43.96 personal best, which ranks him only the fifth-fastest this year. But he was the fourth-quickest in the semifinals, with Makwala going the fastest in 44.11, the best time yet from lane nine."I'm the favourite," said Makwala, adding he wanted to strategise the race with Van Niekerk."I'll tell him, 'let's go strong - for Africa'."The South African team's podium aspirations suffered a major blow in the morning when all three long-jumpers - Khotso Mokoena, the Olympic silver medallist on the same track in 2008, world No 2 Zarck Visser and world No 4 Ruswahl Samaai - all failed to qualify for tonight's final...