South Africa will compete in the Men’s 4×100 Relay Final at the Paris Olympic Games following a stellar performance in the heats on Thursday.
Lining up alongside a powerhouse USA team and Great Britain in Heat 1, the South African quartet came home in second behind the USA with a season’s best time of 37.94 seconds.
A well-drilled China team won Heat 2 in 38.24s. South Africa’s time remained second fastest overall after the heats, ahead of Great Britain and Japan. Team USA – who were without Men’s 100m gold medal winner Noah Lyles – were fastest with 37.47s.
Thrown into the proverbial deep end, 18-year-old Bayanda Walaza started things off for Team South Africa, handing over to Shaun Maswanganyi. Bradley Nkoana ran the third leg and handed over to Mzansi’s sprint king Akani Simbine, who came from sixth to second in a blistering final leg.
Simbine is still hunting down an Olympic medal after finishing just 0.03s behind winner Lyles in the Men’s 100m Final.
This was a positive result considering the team had lost talented youngster Benjamin Richardson to injury earlier this week. The 20-year-old injured his hamstring in the 200m heats on Monday.
“Wasn’t meant to be, but I’ve learnt a lot from this experience,” Richardson posted on social media.
Rio Games gold medalist and 400m world record holder Wayde van Niekerk was touted to feature in the 4x100m team. But after the performance of young Walaza and Nkoana, perhaps the team will remain unchanged.
Men’s 4×100 Relay Final takes place in the Stade de France at 19:47 on Friday night.
