Akani Simbine and his two biggest African rivals will try to land the continent’s first men’s 100m medal at a world championship in Budapest at the weekend.
The short sprint, spread across Saturday and Sunday, is the most open it’s been in years.
Simbine, having missed out at the past three championships with a fourth place and two fifths, is the only competitor to have downed defending champion Fred Kerley of the US this year. But his 9.92 season’s best places him behind African champion Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya, the second fastest in the world so far this year with his 9.84 in Nairobi in May.
And then there’s Botswana’s young Letsile Tebogo, the two-time world U-20 100m champion who went 9.93 in Monaco in July. The 20-year-old is probably a better bet to make the podium in the 200m, where he blasted out a 19.50 personal best in London less than a month ago.
That man is on fire.
Briton Zharnel Hughes is the quickest this year with the 9.83 he clocked in New York in June. Kerley, 9.88, is third on the world list and Jamaica’s Ackeem Blake is fourth on 9.89.
Simbine has been under 9.90 twice in his career and achieved both times in Hungary. His 9.89 in 2016 and 9.84 in 2021 were clocked at the Bregyo athletic centre, nearly 70km southwest of the world championship arena in Budapest. And both of those were one-off races.
Ideally, one needs to push out the fastest time in the final which, scheduled for 7.10pm on Sunday, is about two-and-a-half hours after the semifinals. The heats are on Saturday evening (7.43pm).
Simbine’s coach Werner Prinsloo has said the key is getting the legs to turn over quickly in the semifinals to be able to deliver a fast time in the final. Only once has Simbine gone under 10.00 in a world championship semifinal, and that was in Eugene last year, when he went 9.97.
The 29-year-old, who also finished fourth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is the most experienced of the South African sprint contingent that features World Student Games silver medallist Shaun Maswanganyi and Benjamin Richardson, winner of two 100m medals from the past two world U-20 championships.
Africa’s women aren’t in the same boat, having already climbed the 100m podium, courtesy of Ivorians Marie-Josée Ta Lou and Murielle Ahouré.
The men lag behind. In 18 editions since the showpiece made its debut in Helsinki in 1983, the blue riband event of track and field has remained virgin territory for African men.
Simbine became the third representative of the continent to finish fourth in the 100m when he missed the podium by three-hundredths of a second at Doha 2019.
Namibian Frank Fredericks, the world 200m champion in 1993 and a two-time Olympic 100m silver medallist, missed out on world championship silverware in the short sprint on four occasions.
At Athens 1997, his 9.95 effort was just one-hundredth of a second behind bronze medallist American Tim Montgomery. Two years earlier at Gothenburg 1995, he was 0.4 behind third-placed Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago. Fredericks was fifth in 1991 and sixth in 1993.
Africa’s third fourth-placed man was Nigerian Olusoji Fasuba at Osaka in 2007.
African men have won world championship gold in nine of the 13 track and road events on offer, also missing champions in the two race walks as well as the 110m hurdles. African women have had no golds in the 100m, 200m and the two race walks, but they have had medallists in the two short sprints.
The worst event for African men is the 110m hurdles, where they have had only one finalist in the past 40 years, South Africa’s Shaun Bownes in 2001. That’s unlikely to change in Budapest, though South Africa’s Marioné Fourie is looking to make the women’s 100m hurdles final.
The nine-day championships run from Saturday to next Sunday.
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