Welcome to the World Champs 2023 Preview, Day 11. Wayde Van Niekerk, WR holder, Olympic champion, and two-time World Champion at 400 meters, has returned and wants to run a sizzling lap in Budapest!
For 34 more days, RunBlogRun will be posting a story a day on the buildup to the World Athletics Outdoor Championships, to be held in Budapest, Hungary, from August 19-August 27, 2023.
How do we continue telling you about the incredible African athletes who will compete in the 2023 World Athletics Outdoor Championships?
Today for Day 11, we will tell you the story of Wayde Van Niekerk, who has returned to his gold medal-winning form from 2017.
Wayde Van Niekerk is the first man to break 10 seconds for the 100 meters (9.94), 20 seconds (19.94) for the 200 meters, and 44 seconds for the 400 meters (43.03). He has won gold medals in the 400 meters at the Beijing 2015 World Championships and 2017 World Championships. In 2016, Wayde won the 400-meter gold and broke the WR at 400 meters of Michael Johnson and passed out from the effort. In 2017, the South African also took the silver in the 200 meters. That fall, in a rugby match, he injured his knee.
It has taken him five-plus years to get back to his World Champs-winning level of 2017, probably, one of the greatest comebacks in the history of our sport.
On October 31, 2017, in a celebrity rugby match, Wayde tore his ACL. From the time of his injury until 2019, Wayde Van Niekerk was involved in a very tough rehab program, hoping to bring the athlete back to his previous world-class level.
Athletes know when they are fit and when they are just off that fitness. Wayde Van Niekerk did not race in 2018. In 2019, Wayde ran 47.28, almost 4.25 seconds off his WR. Wilson Kipketer, Olympic silver and bronze medalist, 3-time World Champion, and former WR holder at 800m told this writer about how delicate the balance is of pushing too hard to come back before the body can handle the high-stress levels of training.
Building back the core strength, speed, and endurance took years. In 2020, during the pandemic, Wayde Van Niekerk ran 45.58.
Little by little, Wayde Van Niekerk came closer to his 2017 fitness.
In 2021, Wayde left his long-time coach, Ans Botha. Van Niekerk moved to Clermont, Florida in 2021, training under the watchful eye of Lance Brauman, and…
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