With his victory in a time of 9.99s at the 20th European Athletics Classics Meeting in Slovenia, Akani Simbine joined a select group of sprinters who have broken the 10-second barrier over 100 metres.
Pretoria’s fastest man was only the 103rd sprinter in the world who was able to run the 100m in less than 10 seconds.
On 14 October 1968, in Ciudad de México (Estadio Olímpico), Jim Hines (USA) won the 100m in 9.95s to become the first athlete ever to break through the magical 10-second barrier.
The first South African to run faster than 10 seconds was Simon Magakwe. He won the 100m in a time of 9.98s at last year’s SA Championships in Pretoria. On that day Simbine ran a time of 10.02s for the silver medal.
Before Simbine departed to compete internationally, the Tuks/hpc athlete at first said his main goal for the season was to break 10 seconds.
“However, when I started competing I had second thoughts and changed my goal to focusing on running the perfect race instead. I reckoned that if I managed to run the perfect race, sub-10 seconds would happen automatically,” Simbine said.
“For me being a good sprinter is all about consistency. This means that I do not chase fast times any longer, but rather focus on making sure that I do the small things right. This means that I focus on running the perfect race. I am still under pressure, but I do not allow it to sit on my shoulders.”
Simbine’s performance was achieved on a good night for local sprinters as Henricho Bruintjies finished second in 10.15s with Hyman Kemar from the Cayman Islands third in 10.28s.
Rynhardt van Rensburg finished second in the 800m in a time of 1:45.40 while Justine Palframan finished second in the 200m in a time of 23.36s.
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