Simbine no longer star-struck by Bolt
South African 100m record-holder Akani Simbine said yesterday that he will be joined by Wayde Van Niekerk and a few other members of their training group for a short camp in Jamaica in June in preparation for the Olympics.
|||They’ve both broken the 10-second barrier, and now Akani Simbine and Wayde van Niekerk are hoping to take the next step in their sprint careers – by training and competing with Usain Bolt!
South African 100m record-holder Simbine said yesterday, ahead of this weekend’s SA National Athletics Championships in Stellenbosch, that he will be joined by Van Niekerk and a few other members of their training group for a short camp in Jamaica in June in preparation for the Olympics.
“I’m opening my season at the Rome Diamond League, then me, Wayde and a couple of guys from our group are going to Jamaica and train with Bolt, (Yohan) Blake and coach (Glen) Mills for 12 days, and then we are going to race against them at a competition over there,” Simbine said.
“I ran against Bolt in the relay at the (2014) Commonwealth Games, so this will actually be the first time that I go head-to-head with the big guys!
“At the Commonwealth Games, it was like, ‘yoh, this is Usain Bolt, this is the fastest guy ever’ and I was kind of star-struck. But now it’s a sense of, ‘it’s just Bolt’, it’s just another guy. I don’t get star-struck anymore and it’s like me just sitting across the table from Wayde – it’s nothing big.”
But first on the agenda for Simbine is a 100m showdown with new training partner Henricho Bruintjies – the “Blitz from Klapmuts” – in tonight’s final at Coetzenburg.
They pushed each other to sub-10 second times last year, with Bruintjies first claiming the SA record with a 9.98 in July, which was equalled by Simbine just four days later.
But on March 8 this year, Simbine streaked to a new mark of 9.96 in Pretoria. So the stage is set for an almighty duel between them, and the 22-year-old Simbine says he’s ready for action, while he also suggested that the “kids” – fellow Tuks athletes Gift Leotlela (17) and Clarence Munyai (18), who have run fast times over the last few weeks – need to be put in their place. Van Niekerk will only be running in the 400m.
“I would’ve loved it if Wayde had to run in the 100m! I’m going to win it, I know that! I’m coming here to retain my title from last year (also at Stellenbosch), and just show my dominance,” Simbine said. - Cape Times