Zakithi Nene finishes third in London, Akani Simbine a distant fifth

Akani Simbine and Zakithi Nene were served warnings in London yesterday that just one off-day or miscalculation could cost them dearly.

And getting beaten in their 100m and 400m races at the Diamond League meet was probably the best time to learn these lessons in their build-up to the world championships in Tokyo in September.

Jamaican Oblique Seville upstaged Olympic champion Noah Lyles in the 100m, with Simbine finishing a distant fifth. Returning to action after a lengthy training stint, Simbine was never in the race and suffered his first 100m defeat of the season.

He got away slowly at the start, and even his trademark top speed wasn’t particularly obvious, although he overhauled Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana and British world indoor champion Jeremiah Azu over the final 10 metres.

Seville won in 9.86sec with Lyles second in 10.00 and Briton Zharnel Hughes third in 10.02. Ackeem Blake of Jamaica was fourth in 10.08. Then came Simbine in 10.11, edging Azu by six-thousandths of a second.

Tebogo was seventh in 10.12.

The good news is that the men’s 100m final in Japan is exactly eight weeks away, meaning Simbine has plenty of time to fine-tune his race execution before then. At the 2024 edition of this London meet, he clocked 9.86 to finish second behind Lyles, but that was two weeks before the Olympics, where he ended fourth in a 9.82 South African record.

Yesterday’s meet was too early to show peak form — performances closer to the global showpiece will be more significant, and last year Simbine timed his season to perfection, peaking in Paris with superb performances in the 100m and the 4x100m relay where he anchored South Africa to the Olympic silver. 

This year is an even longer season, and one has to assume Simbine and coach Werner Prinsloo have adjusted their run-in accordingly. 

Nene, also returning after a long training block, ended third in the men’s 400m in London, overshadowed by two British competitors. Nene ran a controlled race, and as he threatened to chase down the front-runners on the home straight, he couldn’t get his turbo to fire as effectively as he wanted.

As he hit the shoulder of Matthew Hudson-Smith, the Paris Olympic 400m silver medallist Charlie Dobson rocketed past both of them on the outside.

Dobson, a member of the British 4x400m team that took Olympic bronze, crossed the line in a 44.14 personal best. Hudson-Smith was second in 44.27, with Nene third in 44.29, ahead of American Vernon Norwood in 44.34. 

Nene remains atop the world list with the 43.76 he ran in Nairobi in late May, but yesterday’s race showed he will have to fight hard for a podium position in Japan.

Prudence Sekgodiso was bumped down to third on the 800m world list after Briton Georgia Hunter-Bell — third in the women’s 1,500m at the Paris Olympics — won the women’s two-lap race in 1min 56.74sec, just short of the 1:56.64 world best held by Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma.

Sekgodiso is sitting on 1:57.16.

Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson withdrew from the race as she continues trying to recover from a hamstring injury.

To date, 25 South African athletes have secured spots at the world championships in individual events, 14 of them men. And nearly 20 others are on track to make it to the showpiece on world rankings when the qualifying window closes on August 24.

A few others will win spots on the four relay teams that have qualified — the men’s 4x100m and 4x400m, the women’s 4x400m and mixed 4x400m.

But the performances of all South Africa’s 100m runners will have to improve if they want to make the podium in Tokyo.