Veteran sprinter Wayde van Niekerk is confident that a South African team boasting a good blend of youth and experience can end their long medal drought at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, starting this weekend.
Van Niekerk, the 400m world record holder, will tackle the men’s 200m and will form part of the men’s 4x400m relay team in the Japanese capital.
The 33-year-old, a two-time former world champion in the one-lap sprint, is one of the most experienced athletes in the team.
Van Niekerk announced his return to form with a 200m qualifying time of 20.07 on August 12 at the Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Budapest, but the time was outside the fastest times in the world this year.
He knows it will take an extraordinary effort to reach the podium once more in the half-lap sprint. But his experience could yet help lift the SA men’s 4X400m team that won gold at the 2025 World Athletics Relays in China onto the podium once again in Tokyo.
Before leaving for Japan on Monday, Van Niekerk shared his thoughts on the potential the rest of the SA team had to break the nation’s eight-year drought at the showpiece.
“There’s always potential, and if you look at the athletes we have now, it’s nice to see it’s quite a good, packed team,” he said.
“There are some athletes who are getting an opportunity as a breakthrough and there are some athletes who are seniors like me, trying to fight ourselves back into medal contention. And then you get our favourites like Akani (100m sprinter Akani Simbine), Zak (400m sprinter Zakithi Nene) and Jo-Ane (javelin thrower Jo-Ane du Plessis).
I think we can get some good momentum, and then we’ll see. It’s all about making the final and then anything is possible.”
Jean Verster, the chairperson of Athletics South Africa track and field commission and the national team leader, was equally confident of the squad’s medal chances.
“I think our whole plan of growing the depth in our sport is very important, and this year 49 athletes are in the team for the world championships, which is one of the biggest teams we’ve had in many years,” Verster said.
“The level at the world championships is so high and you can’t base your programme on a few athletes. You’ve got to create depth and we have some events where we had a lot of athletes who qualified.
“We also have a lot of young athletes who are hoping to make their mark on the world stage, so I’m confident in the project we have planned up until the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and beyond. We can only succeed if we build depth and get larger teams to qualify for the World Championships and Olympics, and hopefully then we’ll get more people into finals because you can only get medals if you’re in finals.”
After visa delays, Wayne Snyman, Sabelo Dlamini, Retshidisitswe Mlenga, Shaun Maswanganyi, Douw Smit and Elroy Gelant will be the last six members of the team to leave from Johannesburg on Wednesday.
The World Athletics Championships at the National Stadium in Tokyo will runs from Friday until the end of next weekend.
