Maswanganyi leads the 200m charge

SHAUN Maswanganyi belied his youthfulness and inexperience to finish as South Africa’s leading 200m runner at the Tokyo Olympics yesterday.

The 20-year-old sprinter – who hails from Soweto and attended St Alban’s College in Pretoria – is now under the tutelage of former 100m legends Carl Lewis and Leroy Burrell at the University of Houston in Texas.

And that kind of specialist training and intense competition on the college circuit is reaping dividends, as Maswanganyi qualified for the 200m semi-finals with a solid time of 20.58 seconds in his heat, and then went significantly faster in his semi-final.

Racing against world-class athletes such as Canada’s Andre de Grasse and Kenny Bednarek of the United States, Maswanganyi faced a tough task to reach the final. But he gave it everything he got, going toe-to-toe with De Grasse over the first 100m, before the 100m bronze medallist from Sunday put on the heat to take the lead.

Maswanganyi was not put off by that surge, and kept going to the line, with Bednarek and Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards edging ahead.

De Grasse won in a sparkling time of 19.73, followed by Bednarek (19.83) and Richards (20.10). Maswanganyi came home in fourth place with a time of 20.18 – which was just shy of his personal best of 20.10.

He missed out on a final place to Richards, but can be delighted by finishing in 10th place overall, to go with his 14th spot in the 100m, where he also reached the semifinals.

The fact that he was unable to race in Europe before the Games makes his performances even more remarkable, and bodes well for Team South Africa in the 4x100m relay, which begins tomorrow with the heats at 4.30am and 4.39am.

Maswanganyi’s form suggests that he should replace the injured Gift Leotlela in the front-line quartet alongside Akani Simbine, Thando Dlodlo and Clarence Munyai – although Wayde van Niekerk is also considering making himself available following his 400m semi-final defeat on Monday.

“Missing the final by 0.08 and finishing 10th overall in my first international competition debut is pretty crazy. Next move is always bigger than the last move. Onto the relay,” Maswanganyi posted on Twitter after his semi-final yesterday.

Earlier in the day, following his heat, he said: “That was good! Took it nice and easy around the curve. I don’t want to press too hard … I’m feeling pretty confident, pretty good coming into a semi-final, and I am just going to keep running my own race.”

It was a disappointing night for the other SA 200m semi-finalists, Munyai and Anaso Jobodwana, who posted times of 20.49 and 20.88 respectively.

SA record-holder Munyai wasn’t too unhappy, though, considering his recent injury woes. “It went fairly alright. It’s my fourth race of the season after injury, so coming to the Olympics and making the semi-final – I’m quite happy. I’ll take that,” Munyai said.

“I was injured a month ago. I tore my quad, so for me to come back and do that … many people won’t do that, so I’m quite happy. Not disappointed at all.”

The 2015 world championship bronze medallist Jobodwana added: “Very tough day. I don’t think there is anything else to say about that. Just glad to be here. To just compete at this level again, because when you are with top-class athletes in the world, you learn a lot from each race, and I’ve learnt a lot just by being here.

“I’ve learnt a lot throughout the season, and for it to culminate like this … I’m happy, I don’t have any excuses.”

African 110m hurdles champion Antonio Alkana missed out on a semi-final place by six one-thousandths of a second with a time of 13.55 after clipping a few hurdles, while Precious Mashele felt he got his tactics wrong in his 5 000m heat, and he was unable to qualify for the final. He finished 15th in 13:48.25 in hot and humid conditions.