The 300m record the Wayde van Niekerk broke on Wednesday night is not an official record — but that takes nothing away from his achievement.The 300m is a rarely run distance, and not recognised as a formal distance for the purposes of International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) record-keeping.But in setting a new world mark for the distance, Van Niekerk not only broke a record that had stood for 17 years, he also achieved a goal Usain Bolt once set for himself and failed to reach.Van Niekerk, running in the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava, Czech Republic, on Wednesday, went four-hundredths of a second under the 30.85sec record set by Michael Johnson in Pretoria in March 2000.Bolt had set his sights on the record in May 2010 — also at Golden Spike in Ostrava — but missed it by 0.12 seconds.The 300m is considered a "training distance", to improve stamina for 200m runners, or speed for 400m runners.Van Niekerk told AFP before the race: "It’s not really an official event, ...
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