Akani Simbine faces world champ in final Olympic tune-up in London

Akani Simbine goes toe-to-toe with some of the Olympic favourites at the final pre-Games Diamond League meet in London on Saturday.

The eight-lane field, featuring seven Paris-bound sprinters, stars all three 100m medallists from the world championships in Budapest last year — reigning champion Noah Lyles of the US, Botswana star Letsile Tebogo and Briton Zharnel Hughes.

This is a mini-dress rehearsal before the Paris showpiece which is shaping up as one of the toughest events of the Games.

Jamaican Kishane Thompson, who’s not in London, is the fastest man in the world this year so far with his 9.77. He beat Simbine and Tebogo in Hungary just more than a week ago.

Simbine is still searching for the first major medal of his career — Olympics or world championships — having finished fourth twice and fifth on three occasions. At 30 this is probably his last big twirl at a Games.

In the build-up to Tokyo 2020 Simbine finished second at the final pre-Olympics Diamond League in Monaco, but behind him in that race were the three men who took the podium spots a couple of weeks later in Japan — Marcell Jacobs of Italy, American Fred Kerley and Canadian Andre De Grasse.

Simbine has beaten them all, except when it mattered. He’s beaten Lyles once, in 2018, but that was in a heat and the American reversed their finishing order in the final later that day. Simbine trails 1-5 overall. Simbine also has one win over Tebogo, from Rabat last year, compared with two losses.

The result on Saturday — as Monaco showed in 2021 — does not mean a lot for Olympic predictions but it’s critical that Simbine gains confidence from it.

This is the final tune-up. The 100m heats in Paris will be exactly two weeks later, with the semifinals and final on August 4.

Another race South Africans will need to keep an eye on is the women’s 800m, where three of the top-eight women on the world will compete, notably British pace-setter Keely Hodgkinson.

The other two are Jemma Reekie, another Briton, and Halimah Nakaayi of Uganda. 

South African star Prudence Sekgodiso, third on the world list, is sitting this one out, as is second-placed Kenyan Mary Moraa.

Sekgodiso set her 1min 57.26sec personal best earlier this season and it will be interesting to see if anyone goes faster than that on Saturday. No fewer than seven Olympic runners are in the line-up and a couple of them have faster lifetime bests than the South African.

One is 33-year-old Jamaican Natoya Goule-Topping, a tough competitor who like Simbine is also trying to land a major gong. She set her 1:55.96 national record in Eugene in September last year.

The other is Reekie, who went 1:56.90 at the Tokyo Games.

Reekie, 26, Hodgkinson and 17-year-old Phoebe Gill all qualified for Paris, giving Britain the chance to work as a team.

Laura Muir also has a faster best, having gone 1:56.73, but she is racing only in the 1,500m at the Games.