Wayde breaks his 100m personal best

Slovenia? Wayde van Niekerk renamed this East European nation Fastenia on Tuesday night as he shattered his 100m personal best while racing to victory in 9.94sec to again prove he has the speed for the 200m. 

The Olympic 400m champion shattered the 9.99 meet record set by friend Akani Simbine two years ago to improve on his own 9.98 best as he beat compatriots Emile Erasmus (10.12) and Henricho Bruintjies (10.14) into second and third place. 

This comes as yet another boost for Van Niekerk‚ the 400m world record-holder who will add the 200m to his repertoire at the world championships in London in August. 

He recently broke the SA 200m mark when he clocked a 19.84 world lead earlier this month‚ and now he has established himself as the second-fastest South African 100m sprinter of all time behind Simbine‚ who owns the 9.89 mark.

Van Niekerk will compete in his first international 400m race in Lausanne next month.  

At the same meet at Velenje‚ Rikenette Steenkamp dominated the women’s 100m hurdles‚ winning by nearly half-a-second as she clocked 13.03‚ just one-hundredth of a second outside her personal best from April.

Tamzin Thomas was the fastest over 200m on the night‚ winning her heat in 23.82‚ but Olympian and SA champion Alyssa Conley‚ in the same heat‚ was disqualified for a false start. 

Lynique Prinsloo took the early lead in the women’s long jump‚ sailing to 6.25m on her first attempt‚ which kept her atop the leaderboard for the first two rounds. 

But she never improved from there‚ carding one no-jump and four efforts of 6.22‚ 6.08‚ 6.21 and 6.20. 

In the end Prinsloo was leap-frogged by three opponents to be pushed into fourth place. 

Two of them‚ including winner and Sweden’s 2015 world under-18 championship silver medallist‚ Kaiza Karlen‚ produced their best in the final sixth round.  

Jacob Rozani was third in his 800m race in 1min 46.33‚ but countryman Hlaselo Dumisane was eighth in his race in a pedestrian 1:52.67.

- TimesLIVE