For all the awards showered on Wayde van Niekerk this year, he missed out on the one he may have coveted the most.
The IAAF World Athlete of the Year gong is the ultimate for any participant in the sport. It is where you are recognised for your technical ability and what you have achieved specifically in the sport.
And while Usain Bolt again stunned the sporting world by grabbing three more gold medals at the Rio Olympics, Van Niekerk – in his first Games – won the 400m title and broke American Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old record of 43.18 as he set a new mark of 43.03.
Add in Britain’s middle-distance star Mo Farah, who won two golds in Rio, and it’s a tough choice for the voters – made up of the IAAF Council, the IAAF Family (all officials, staff and sponsors in athletics, and the media) and the public. The Council’s vote counted for 50 percent, with the Family and public 25 percent each, and it ended on November 1.
But the final list of nominees was only announced on October 18, which means that there was just a two-week period to vote. Surely that cannot be enough time, especially when it comes to the public vote? Many South Africans may not have been aware of the process as the last time a local won the award was high jumper Hestrie Cloete in 2003.
Be that as it may, Van Niekerk was consistently good throughout the year. He started out by becoming the first athlete to run 100m in under 10 seconds, 200m in under 20 and 400m in under 44 when he clocked 9.98 in Bloemfontein in March. Not even the greats such as Bolt and Johnson could achieve that.
He won the 200m African title in Durban in June, and continued his season in Europe and elsewhere, not losing a single race.
The build-up to the Olympic final was all about whether he could hold off defending Olympic champion Kirani James and American superstar LaShawn Merritt. What counted against the South African further was his bad draw in lane eight.
The effect of that was that Van Niekerk wouldn’t be able to see where James and Merritt were until the final straight.
That forced him to do his own thing as he put his head down and ran the race of his life…
Van Niekerk broke one of the most arduous records around. Johnson had gone past Burt Reynolds’ 43.29, set in 1988, with Reynolds also making history by breaking a 20-year-old mark of 43.86 by American Lee Evans in 1968.
Reynolds’ time stood for 11 years before Johnson beat it, and now 17 years later, it is Van Niekerk’s turn. That is how tough the 400m is. Even our golden boy himself has often spoken about how hard the one-lap race gets.
“I think it could be a good testimony to other athletes who want to play the game clean. I thought you had to use something to run a sub-44, and look where I am today. And I’ve done it clean and I’ve done it simply by pure hard work and dedication,” he was reported as saying by AFP after winning gold in Rio.
“If I can be a testimony, I think anyone else can do it, if I could be an example for that.”
Within just four years since focusing on the 400m after battling with injury in the 100m and 200m, Van Niekerk has rewritten the history books. For that, he should’ve been chosen as the best athlete in 2016. He deserved it.
@ashfakmohamed
Independent Media