Ever since the South African Championships in Pretoria last year where the Tuks/hpc sprinter, Akani Simbine, finished second in a time of 10.02s, the question has not been whether Simbine is good enough to dip under 10 seconds for the 100 metres but rather when he will do so.

Simbine has already shown that he is in good form this season by running wind assisted times of 10.04s and 10.06s and a legal time of 10.09s, but he still seems to need that little ‘bolt of lightning’ to super charge his batteries to enable him to break 10 seconds.

Maybe this will happen this weekend at the South African Championships. He will be competing at the South African Senior Championships at Stellenbosch on Friday and Saturday.

The unpredictability of the Cape weather makes Simbine hesitant to make bold predictions about fast times.  However, if the weather plays along he might consider making a serious effort to challenge the stopwatch already during Friday’s semi-finals.

Simon Magakwe, six-time national champion and the only South African sprinter yet who has been able to run a time faster than 10 seconds, will not be competing.  He has been slapped with a two-year ban for missing an out-of-competition dope test last year.

However, Magakwe’s absence does not mean that Simbine is taking anything for granted.

“I have learned the hard way that no race is ever won until you have crossed the finish line. There are other good sprinters who will be competing and who are able to win.”

Simbine reiterated that for now he is not obsessed with 10 seconds.

I am still young, which means that I still have time on my hands to reach this goal. I know that if I continue to put in the long hard hours of training and run the right races it will be only a matter of time before I start running times faster than 10 seconds. In the end it all boils down to biding my time and not becoming obsessed. Patience is definitely a virtue,” the 21-year-old said wisely.