Wayde van Niekerk returns to top of the world at Usain Bolt farewell

Olympic 400m champion Wayde van Niekerk reclaimed the 200m world lead as he broke the South African record at Usain Bolt’s farewell meet in Jamaica on Saturday night.

Victorious Van Niekerk clocked 19.84sec to shave 0.03 off the mark Anaso Jobodwana had set winning bronze at the 2015 world championships in Beijing. 

Van Niekerk‚ who is aiming to do the 200m and 400m double at the world championships in London in August‚ had seen his world’s best time of 19.90 from April get eclipsed late last month by American student Christian Coleman‚ who went 19.85. 

Now the South African superstar is back on top. 

Countryman Akani Simbine was unable to recover from a slow start and had to settle for second place behind Bolt’s countryman‚ Yohan Blake‚ in their 100m race. 

Blake crossed the line in 9.97 and Simbine‚ who has now lost two races in a row‚ in 10.00. 

Both were faster than Bolt‚ who won the feature event of the Racers Grand Prix in 10.03‚ although they enjoyed a slightly stronger tail wind of 0.6 metres per second compared to 0.2. 

Bolt will not do the 200m at the world championships‚ after which he plans to retire.

 -TMG Digital/ TMG Sport