Wayde van Niekerk (400 metres world champion), Sunette Viljoen (bronze medallist in the javelin at the World Championships) and Wenda Nel (400-hurdles finalist at the World Championships) could be forgiven for wondering: “Have we not done this before?” Their respective events will be almost exact repeats of their World Championships finals in Beijing.
Van Niekerk, who set the world alight with his winning time of 43.48 seconds in the World Championships finals, will be challenged by LaShawn Merritt (US), who was second in 43.65s and Kirani James (Grenada), who was third in 43.78s.
The Beijing final was certainly one of the fastest 400 metres races in athletics history. The South African’s time put him 4th on the IAAF All Time List, Merritt’s time ranks 6th and James’s time 8th.
But they won’t be the only fast men who will contest the 400 metres on Thursday. Isaac Makwala (Botswana), who ran a time of 43.72s earlier this season (putting him 7th on the All Time List) will also compete. The Botswana athlete was 5th in the final. This means that four of the fastest 400 metres athletes ever will be competing against each other for victory.
