‘Finally,’ says Simbine as men’s 4x100m relay team win Olympic silver

Akani Simbine secured a long-awaited Olympic medal on Friday night, anchoring the South African 4x100m relay team to second place at the Paris Games.

Simbine joined Shaun Maswanganyi, as well as teenagers Bradley Nkoana and Bayanda Walaza, as they grabbed second place and the silver medal in an African record of 37.57 seconds in the sprint relay final.

Canada won gold in 37.50 and Great Britain snatched bronze in 37.61.

“I’m so happy that we came out here, we ran, we got an Olympic silver medal and we got an African record to top it up,” said Simbine, who was fourth in the 100m semifinal last week and had narrowly missed out on multiple major medals throughout his career.

“For me it’s just finally, I got a major championship medal, and I’m hungry for more. I’m excited, and I’m happy for the guys and I’m happy for our country.”

Other events

Earlier on Friday, the national men’s 4x400m relay team emerged from a dramatic first round with their medal hopes still intact at the Olympic Games in Paris.

While world record holder Wayde van Niekerk had been expected to run the heats, he was absent, with the task of qualifying for the final resting on Gardeo Isaacs, Zakithi Nene, Antonie Nortje and Lythe Pillay.

And while they were well placed at the start of the third leg, Nortje was bumped and crashed to the track, and they trailed home in last place in 3:03.19.

However, Nigeria were later disqualified and the SA team were given a spot in the final, following a decision by the technical referee.

This meant South Africa were set to compete in both the men’s 4x100m final (7.47pm on Friday) and the men’s 4x400m final (9pm on Saturday) at the Paris Games.

Meanwhile, in other events during the morning session on Friday, middle-distance runner Edmund du Plessis settled for fourth place in his 800m semifinal in 1:45.34, and he missed out on a place in the final.

In the women’s 100m hurdles semifinals, national record holder Marione Fourie finished sixth in 13.01 and she was also eliminated ahead of the final in her specialist discipline.

Other sports

Elsewhere yesterday, diver Julia Vincent took 11th position in the women’s 3m springboard final with 271.25 points.

After qualifying sixth best in the semifinals, she was not pleased with her performance, and Vincent said she would reconsider her potential retirement in an attempt to improve her result at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“That didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but it’s been a lot of hours and so much as gone into this Olympics,” an emotional Vincent said after the final.

“I feel really proud to have made history (as the best Olympic diver) for my country but I obviously wanted today to go better.”

Paddlers Hamish Lovemore and Andrew Birkett ended sixth in their kayak double 500m semifinal in 1:29.70, and they went on to finish fourth in the B final in 1:31.29.