Ten and counting is where Akani Simbine (TuksAthletics) is at after he won the 100 metres at the Gauteng North Championships in Pretoria in a time of 9.92s.
It was the 10th time that the South African record holder managed to dip under ten seconds and it is definitely not going to be the last as he has set himself a goal to do so each time he races. Yesterday he accomplished it twice on the same day. Before the final he ran a time of 9.98s in the heats.
Although his time of 9.92s is the second fastest of his career Simbine does not rate it as one of his better races.
“Chuffed but not happy,” was how the Tuks sprint perfectionist described his performance. The reason for Simbine’s frustration was his start out of the blocks.
“For the past 18 months one of my biggest focus points was working on my start. I thought that I had mastered it but apparently I have not. The start was not the only thing I was disappointed with but I cannot just say that my race was all bad. I need to look at the positives also. I was put under pressure by Thando (Roto) over the first 70 metres of the race. That caused some panic but not in a negative way. I was able to fight back and win in a good time proving that I have matured as a sprinter.
“I think the experience I gained racing at the Olympic Games and the Diamond League Meetings is starting to pay dividends. It certainly helped being able to race against the top athletes frequently as it helped me learn to control my emotions when I'm competing and also regroup.”
In the past two weeks Simbine has been a major role player in rewriting South African athletics history. First he became the first local sprinter, and only the seventh in the world, to dip under ten seconds in the 100 metres and 20 seconds in the 200 metres on the same day. He ran times of 9.93s and 19.95s at a league meeting at Tuks. He is also the first South African to dip under 20 seconds in a local race.
Yesterday he was again part of local sprinting history in the making as in the final he was not the only athlete to dip under 10 seconds. Thando Roto (TuksAthletics) raced to a second place finish in a time of 9.95s. It was the first time ever in South Africa that two sprinters in the same race clocked times faster than 10 seconds.
In spite of this Simbine is confident that his best performance is yet to come.
“Last year when I started my sprint campaign by running 9.96s everybody was like are you not peaking to early but I managed to maintain everything I could and ended up running a new South African record and qualifying for the Olympic final. So I don’t think that running fast now is peaking too early. We have not even started doing the real training I need to be doing. Looking ahead I think there are still big things going to happen.”
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