Akani Simbine will take to the Paris track for the first time in Saturday’s first round of the 100m in a quest to finally get his hands on an Olympic medal.
Speaking ahead of his race, the South African sprint star said watching Tatjana Smith storm to gold in the 100m breaststroke this week has made him even more eager to get his own campaign underway.
“I think it just excites us... I was watching from [the SA training camp in] Montpellier and I'm screaming: ‘Go Tatjana! Go Tatjana! and when she won I was screaming,” he explained.
“That made me excited and since that day I've just been excited to compete. I've just been excited to come back to the [athletes] village and get back to getting ready for the start on Saturday.”
Simbine finished fifth in the 100m final in Rio in 2016 and fourth in Tokyo five years later, with many South Africans hoping this will finally be his year to reach the podium.
The 30-year-old was given a massive confidence boost by running an impressively quick time of 9.86 seconds to finish behind world champion and gold medal favourite Noah Lyles at the last Diamond League meet in London before the start of the Games.
He currently holds the joint fifth fastest time in the world this year.
But that counts for little with the added pressures of an Olympic final. That’s where Simbine’s experience could come in handy.
The Pretoria sprinter, who has notched up an incredible decade of sub-10-second times in the 100m, is eager to perform in front of a crowd after the eerie silence of the Tokyo stadium three years ago, where fans were banned from attending because of the Covid pandemic.
“My last race I was in London and we had 57 000 people in the stadium, and that was just for a Diamond League which was awesome, the best thing out,” he said.
“I’m not sure what the capacity of the stadium is, 80 000, so having that in the stadium is going to be mind-blowing, it’s really exciting and we as athletes feed off that energy,
“Having my parents there, having my wife there and my kids there, it gets really amazing for me because I've never had everyone altogether to support me at an international competition like this.”
'FEELING CONFIDENT'
As for the goal in Paris, Simbine is not holding back.
“I'm in the best shape of my life. For me, it's something that I feel and I'm very confident about.
“I think this year is very different, the way we've come we've actually approached the year and how we've raced and how coach has gotten me to actually train and compete.
"So it's really put me in a position where I feel very confident in myself, feel confident in my race pattern and how I race, and the athlete that I am, and just brought me to this place now where I feel I'm confident enough to go and go for the gold at the Olympics.”
The first round of the 100m is scheduled to kick off at 11.55am on Saturday with the semifinals and final set for Sunday.
Simbine will also be part of the promising SA men’s 4x100m relay team that will be in action next Thursday, 8 August.