Wayde van Niekerk

Wayde van Niekerk

Wayde van Niekerk 2017 in London

nation

South Africa

birthday

15th July 1992 (age 28)

place of birth

Cape Town , South Africa

size

183 cm

Weight

70 kg

Career

discipline

sprint

Best performance

100 m: 9.94 s (+ 0.9 m / s)
200 m: 19.84 s (+ 1.2 m / s)
300 m: 30.81 s
400 m: 43.03 s

Trainer

To Botha

National squad

since 2010

status

active

Medal table

Olympic games	1 ×	0 ×	0 ×
World championships	2 ×	1 ×	0 ×
Commonwealth Games	0 ×	1 ×	0 ×
African Championships	2 ×	1 ×	0 ×
Universiade	0 ×	0 ×	1 ×

Olympic games
gold	Rio de Janeiro 2016	400 m
World championships
gold	Beijing 2015	400 m
gold	London 2017	400 m
silver	London 2017	200 m
Commonwealth Games
silver	Glasgow 2014	400 m
African Championships
gold	Durban 2016	200 m
gold	Durban 2016	4 × 100 m
silver	Marrakech 2014	400 m
Universiade
bronze	Kazan 2013	4 × 400 m

last change: August 10, 2017

Wayde van Niekerk (born July 15, 1992 in Cape Town ) is a South African athlete who specializes in the 200 and 400 meter run . He was the first African to run the 400 meters in under 44 seconds. He is the reigning Olympic champion, two-time world champion and current world record holder in this discipline.

Most 400-meter runs under 44 seconds
rank	Track and field athlete	number
1.	United States Michael Johnson	22nd
2.	United States Jeremy Wariner	9
2.	United States LaShawn Merritt	9
4th	Grenada Kirani James	7th
5.	South Africa Wayde van Niekerk	6th
6th	United States Harry Reynolds	4th
	United States Quincy Watts	4th
	Botswana Isaac Makwala	4th
As of May 6, 2018

Athletic career

In his youth, van Niekerk was mainly active in the high jump . From 2009 he also trained for sprint disciplines , on which he finally fully concentrated after qualifying over 200 meters for the 2010 Junior World Championships in Moncton. There he finished fourth in a time of 21.02 s.

In 2011 van Niekerk became the South African junior champion over 100 and 200 meters. He also won his first national title in the active class in the 200-meter run and achieved a new personal best of 20.57 s. Due to a stubborn thigh injury, however, its further development was slowed down over the next year and a half. In 2012 he only contested five races without achieving outstanding results.

In 2013 van Niekerk turned increasingly to the 400-meter run and became the South African champion over this distance. At the Universiade in Kazan , he reached the semifinals over 400 meters and won the bronze medal in the 4 x 400 meter relay . He also started at the World Championships in Moscow over 400 meters, but was eliminated in the run-up. In 2014 he successfully defended his national championship title. He also achieved top results on an international level. He ran a national record over 400 meters in second place at the adidas Grand Prix in New York City with a time of 44.38 s and won the silver medal at both the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the African Championships in Marrakech .

In 2015 van Niekerk established himself among the absolute best in the world. Among other things, he was the first African to undercut the 44-second mark over 400 meters at the Areva meeting in Paris at the beginning of July with a time of 43.96 s. However, he lost his new continental record the next day to Isaac Makwala from Botswana , who ran for 43.72 s in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. A little later, van Niekerk stayed under 20 seconds for the first time in the 200-meter run at the top athletics Lucerne with 19.94 s. At the World Championships in Beijing , he won the gold medal in the 400-meter run in 43.48 s, ahead of defending champion LaShawn Merritt from the United States (43.65 s) and Olympic champion Kirani James from Grenada (43.78 s). This was the first time in history that three athletes remained below the 44-second mark in the same race. With his winning time, Van Niekerk moved up to fourth place on the all-time world best list and regained the African record.

On March 12, 2016 van Niekerk won the 100-meter run at the provincial championships in Bloemfontein in 9.98 s. This makes him the first person in history to run 100 meters in under 10 seconds, 200 meters in under 20 seconds and 400 meters in under 44 seconds. In June he won the 200-meter title at the African Championships in Durban, as well as the 4-by-100-meter relay . In the men's final over 400 meters at the Olympic Games on August 14, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro , he ran to gold in 43.03 s and set a new world record time with which he undercut Michael Johnson's record since 1999 .

In 2017 he started again increasingly on the shorter distances. In April he undercut the 20-second mark in the South African Potchefstroom over 200 meters, and on June 10, he set a new record in Kingston with 19.84 seconds. On June 20, he improved over 100 meters to 9.94 s. On June 28, he achieved a world best at the Ostrava Golden Spike with 30.81 seconds on the rarely run 300 meter distance. In Lausanne and Monaco he won in his real parade discipline, the 400-meter distance, in a world best for the year of 43.62 s and 43.73 s. In January he had already announced that he would be aiming for the double over 200 and 400 meters at the World Championships in London , something that only Michael Johnson had achieved in Gothenburg in 1995 . In April, the IAAF granted Van Niekerk's request and changed the schedule of the World Cup so that the prelimbs over 200 meters would not take place immediately before the 400-meter final. He successfully defended his 400-meter title in 43.98 s. His competitor Isaac Makwala was missing in the final because he was quarantined due to the norovirus. In the 200 meter final he had to admit defeat to Ramil Guliyev , who crossed the finish line after 20.09 s. Van Niekerk, on the other hand, was only a thousandth of a second faster than bronze medalist Jereem Richards with 20.106 s .

He suffered a cruciate ligament rupture at a celebrity touch rugby match on October 7, 2017 in Cape Town and, as a result, missed the entire next season.

Van Niekerk is trained by Ans Botha and studies marketing at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. In 2017 he was awarded the Order of Ikhamanga in gold for his outstanding sporting achievements .