South Africa swooped on the World Relays in fine fashion in Guangzhou, China, last night, with all four teams booking their passage to the world championships in Tokyo later this year.
And two of the outfits — Akani Simbine and his Olympic silver medal band and Zakithi Nene and his 4x400m warriors — will start today’s finals in pole position.
The mixed and women’s 4x400m outfits will start closer to the back of the field, but even then, Zeney Geldenhuys and Shirley Nekhubui delivered in both races yesterday, landing one national record.
In the 4x100m Bayanda Walaza, Sinesipho Dambile, Bradley Nkoana and Simbine raced around the track in 37.84sec, the fastest time in the world this year before Japan matched it in the following heat.
Behind them were the world champions the US (37.86), Olympic champions Canada (38.15), Tokyo Olympic champions Italy (38.16) and Olympic bronze medallists Britain (38.18).
For Simbine, today is a chance to land that elusive World Relays gong that should have been gathering dust in his trophy cabinet for years already. He anchored the team to gold in 2021, only to be ordered to hand the medal back after one of his teammates, Thando Dlodlo, failed a dope test.
At the Paris Games, Simbine received the baton in fifth place and blasted the team to second, but in China last night he set off on the final leg in first position, helped by a handover horror suffered by the Jamaicans in the lane outside them.
South Africa had been lying second behind the Caribbean islanders after the first two legs run by Walaza and Dambile. Bradley Nkoana stormed into the lead as the Jamaicans stumbled, leaving Simbine to canter to a dominant victory.
Nene was the only 4x400m runner to dip under 44 seconds yesterday, as South Africa won their heat in a 3min 00.00sec world lead.
At the 2024 World Relays in Bahamas, Nene and Lythe Pillay helped the team to silver, but this time — with schoolboy Udeme Okon and Mthi Mthimkulu — they have a shot at gold in the absence of defending champions Botswana and Olympic champions, the US.
Nekhubui, Hannah van Niekerk, Precious Molepo and Geldenhuys won their heat in a 3:28.01 national record to rank seventh going into the final. And Nekhubui and Geldenhuys teamed up with Tumisang Shezi and Leendert Koekemoer, another schoolboy, to finish their heat in second in 3:13.79.
The first two teams in each heat yesterday qualified automatically for the world championships.
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