South Africa’s golden boy Wayde van Niekerk made history once again on Wednesday night when he effortlessly took the 300-metre world record in Ostrava, Czech Republic.

Wayde van Niekerk had nothing to lose and everything to gain when he took on the rarely-run 300-metre event on Wednesday night – and he did more than that – he took the world record in his stride at the IAAF World Challenge League held in the Czech Republic, in a blistering time of 30.81 seconds. This set yet another world, African and South African record.

It also wiped out the seven-year-old meeting record of 30.97 by Olympic legend Usain Bolt, and the previous world record of 30.85 seconds which was set 17 years ago in Pretoria by American Michael Johnson, making van Niekerk’s result even more impressive.

Van Niekerk started in lane five, and took the lead almost instantly. The Bloemfontein local appeared to be cruising over the final 20 metres with victory never in doubt.

African runners took the podium as Botswana’s Isaac Makwala and South African Clarence Munyai wrapped up second and third position in times of 31.44 and 31.61 respectively.

Van Niekerk is now the first man in history to go: sub-10 for 100m, sub-20 for 200m, sub-31 for 300m and sub-44 for 400m.

Article adapted from SASCOC.

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