Akani Simbine puts SA 100m title at risk to target global medal

Akani Simbine’s dream of winning the elusive 100m global medal at the world championships in Tokyo this year rests on a calculated gamble that will unfold on Thursday.

The 31-year-old has chosen to compete at the opening Diamond League meet in China on Saturday instead of defending his 100m national crown at the SA championships in Potchefstroom this week.

Simbine and coach Werner Prinsloo believe their plan is their best preparation for the global showpiece, but paradoxically it comes at a risk that could cost him a spot in the blue-riband 100m race in Japan. 

SA has filled its maximum quota of three qualifiers for the short sprint, courtesy of:

• Simbine, with the 9.82sec he ran at the Paris Olympics;
• Benjy Richardson, who went 9.95 at the Games; and
• youngster Bayanda Walaza, who went 9.99 in March.

The only way to displace them is to go faster than them or outperform them at the national championships.

Athletics SA is allowing Simbine to miss its national showpiece on the understanding that if a sprinter other than Richardson and Walaza cracks the 10.00sec automatic qualifying time for Tokyo, he will lose his spot in the team.

Simbine said he had analysed his potential threats.

“I’ve literally been watching athletics in SA this whole season because of the risk we’re taking,” he said before flying to China this week.

“It’s three of us who are running under 10. I don’t see another person doing it.

“There’s no shade on anyone. Everybody’s running 10.1. That’s their range. For you to drop from 10.1 and run 9 and you’ve never done it before, it’s not going to happen.”

The biggest threat on paper is Abduraghmaan Karriem, who went 10.07 in Gaborone earlier in April, on the same day Simbine set his 9.90 world lead.

However, the weather report for 2pm on Thursday, when the 100m semifinals will be run, is not great news for Karriem: partly cloudy with a maximum of 21°C. The race is likely to produce the fastest time, with the heats set for before 10am (19°C) and the final at 4.30pm (18°C).

Simbine said the 2024 national championships in Pietermaritzburg had convinced him to skip 2025’s event because his biggest rivals then were under-20 athletes.

“The past few years, the 100m in SA has not been up to par. I’m doing it because I have to; I’m not doing it because I want to or it makes sense for my season,” he said, adding in 2024 his rivals were mostly under-20 athletes.

Walaza finished second and Bradley Nkoana was third.

“I kept telling coach, I’m running against juniors — I could be at SA Juniors now. What’s the point?

“That’s why we got to where we are now and said ‘OK, let’s take the risk’. If it doesn’t work out, I’m prepared to take the knock,” said Simbine, who recently finished third in the 60m at the world indoor championships in China.

Simbine, who placed fourth at the Paris Olympics by one-hundredth of a second, faces a tough field in Xiamen, taking on Botswana star Letsile Tebogo, former American world champion Christian Coleman, Britain’s 60m world indoor champion Jeremiah Azu and Kenyan African record-holder Ferdinand Omanyala.

Lythe Pillay and Marioné Fourie are also taking the same road to China by opting to give the national championships a miss, but they face less risk. To date only Pillay and Zakithi Nene have qualified in the 400m for the world championships and Fourie is the only one so far in the women’s 100m hurdles.

Pillay goes up against two members of Botswana’s 4x400m team who won Olympic silver, Bayapo Ndori and Busang Kebinatshipi, and evergreen Kirani James of Grenada.

Fourie faces former world champions Nia Ali of the US and Nigerian Tobi Amusan.

Simbine will spend the next three weeks or so in China, also racing the second Diamond League meet in Shanghai next Saturday and the World Relays the next weekend in Guangzhou, where he and his 4x100m teammates will attempt to book the country’s spot in the world championship line-up.

In Simbine’s absence in Potchefstroom, the favourite for the 100m will be Walaza, the under-20 world 100m and 200m champion, who will go head-to-head with Wayde van Niekerk, defending 200m champion Richardson, Lux Adams and 2022 champion Sinesipho Dambile in the 200m on Saturday.

Jo-Ane du Plessis, the Olympic silver medallist, will be in action in the women’s javelin on Saturday while Prudence Sekgodiso, the world indoor 800m champion, is doubling in the 800m and 1,500m.