Botswana’s 400m world champion Collen Kebinatshipi dipped under 43.50sec in Monaco on Friday night, edging closer to the world record Wayde van Niekerk set nearly a decade ago.
Kebinatshipi clocked 43.44 to join Briton Matthew Hudson-Smith as the sixth-fastest of all time. He also broke his own Diamond League record and scuppered the 43.73 meeting record held by Van Niekerk.
This year could end up producing more sub-44 runners than ever in history; there are already six — among them South African Zakithi Nene — which matches the record from 2015, Van Niekerk’s breakout year as a world champion.
Lythe Pillay, who was scheduled to race in Belgium last night, is among those threatening sub-44.
But 22-year-old Kebinatshipi has been in a league of his own this year, displaying a freshness down the home straight while his rivals drown in lactic. Then he did push-ups on the track on Friday, showing off his energy reserves.
We are just playing around and see how fast we can go towards the end of the season
— Collen Kebinatshipi
Not many people would bet against the Motswana beating the 43.03 mark Van Niekerk — 24 at the time — ran to win Olympic gold at the Rio Games on August 14 2016. Kebinatshipi has the attributes to surpass that. He raced the 100m in 9.89 in Gaborone earlier this year, quicker than Van Niekerk’s 9.94 best.
His effort on Friday was his third sub-44 this season — equalling Van Niekerk’s three sub-44s from 2017 — and there’s still plenty of racing to be done before the end of the season.
Kebinatshipi needs only to dip under 20 seconds in the 200m to join Van Niekerk and Americans Fred Kerley and Michael Norman as the only men to have achieved the sprint treble: sub-10 100m, sub-20 200m and sub-44 400m. That will be a formality.
Matter of time
Given the way he’s dominated since the 2025 world championships in Tokyo, it’s just a matter of time before he takes a serious swing at Van Niekerk’s record.
“We are just playing around and see how fast we can go towards the end of the season,” he said.
If Kebinatshipi is going to target the world record this year, he will likely aim for one of the remaining Diamond League meets or the inaugural ultimate world championships in Budapest in September.
The good news for South Africa is that Kebinatshipi won’t be heading to Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games later this month.
Perhaps he’s got bigger fish to fry.
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