South Africa’s world record holder Wayde van Niekerk missed out on a medal after finishing fifth in the men’s 400m final won by Michael Norman of the United States at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon on Saturday morning.
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The 2016 Olympic champion had a great start and was in contention for a podium finish before tiring in the last 50 metres to end up fifth in 44.97 seconds. Botswana’s Bayapo Ndori, who had shown great promise in the heats, could only finish sixth here in 45.29s.
Despite not medalling, Van Niekerk will be pleased to have made the final in Oregon after battling injuries for the last five years.
There will be two African teams in the men’s 4x100m final after South Africa and Ghana successfully navigated the qualifying rounds. Akani Simbine ran an incredible anchor leg to help the Rainbow nation finish third in heat two in 38.31s.
“The main thing was to get it to the next round, that is what we needed to do. To make sure we get it into the final and glad that we all finished up healthy - that is the most important thing to do. And we will fight again tomorrow,” said Simbine.
“There was a little bit mess with one exchange but we managed to get it through. So I am just happy we managed and maybe we will have a smooth race. We managed to get a couple of training sessions so we will be good for tomorrow," added Henricho Bruintjies who ran the first leg.
Ghana’s quartet of Sean Safo-Antwi, Benjamin Azamati, Joseph Oduro Manu and Joseph Paul Amoah also finished third in heat one in 38.58s behind USA and Great Britain.
"I thank my coach and my team for trusting me in that last leg. I just wanted to make sure we pass the baton around. In the final, everything is possible. Just gonna go out there and execute the race and see how fast we can run. We got a little time to train. We are hoping to get a medal. We do not want to say anything specific. Anything is possible," said Amoah.
There was no place for Nigeria after the West Africans were disqualified for not passing the baton in the designated zone.
The Nigerian ladies will however be in the 4x100m final after placing third in 42.68s. Joy Chinenye Udo-Gabriel, Favour Ofili, Rosemary Chukwuma and Grace Nwokocha powered round the track to finish behind USA and Spain.
Kenya’s Mary Moraa will compete in her first senior global final after winning heat one of the women’s 800m semifinals in 1:59.65. The 22 year old Kenyan led from start to finish relegating World Indoor Champion Ajee Wilson to second place and will be an outside bet for a medal in the final.
"It was very important to me to get to the finals because this is my first World championships running 800m. First of all, I thank God that I managed to fulfill my goal, to get to the final. I trained well so I am happy to be in the final. Anything can happen and I can say I want to win but anybody can win. It is very open,” Moraa told superport.com.
“I have been running 400 since 2018 so I was confident with my speed. But then I turned to run 800m because in Africa, there is not good opportunity to train 100, 200 and 400m. So we decided with my coach to go for the 800m so that I can push my talent to somewhere," she added.
Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji set a new personal best time of 1:58.16 on her way to qualifying for the final. Welteji led for 600 metres before Olympic champion Athing Mu flew past her.
Defending champion Halima Nakaayi will not defend her title after the Ugandan finishing eighth in 2:01.05. There was also place in the final for Prudence Sekogdiso and Naomi Korir of Kenya.