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Wayde van Niekerk, who received the 2016 Olympic 400m in world-record time, is leaving South Africa and his longtime coach, 79-year-old Ans Botha, to affix Noah Lyles‘ coaching group in Florida.
“As a lot as I’ve loved my expertise with Tannie Ans and her group, I hope to interrupt my world document (43.03 seconds) and to do this I want to make sure I’m coaching alongside the world’s greatest sprinters,” van Niekerk mentioned in a press launch. “So I really feel a short lived transfer to the US might be in my greatest pursuits for the rapid future.”
Coach Lance Brauman leads Lyles’ group, which additionally consists of Bahamian Shaunae Miller-Uibo, additionally a Rio Olympic 400m champion.
Van Niekerk and Lyles aren’t anticipated to be in direct particular person competitors in Tokyo. Lyles runs the 100m and 200m. Van Niekerk, although he received the 2017 World 200m silver medal in Lyles’ injury-forced absence, is anticipated to stay to the 400m this summer time.
Van Niekerk, 28, will reassess his future plans after the Tokyo Olympics.
The transfer is paying homage to 2016, when van Niekerk spent a part of the build-up to the Rio Video games by coaching with Usain Bolt‘s group in Jamaica. Then he surprised the world within the Olympic 400m last, breaking Michael Johnson‘s 17-year-old world document out of lane eight.
Breaking the world document once more could be a fair larger feat given van Niekerk’s obstacles the final three and a half years.
On Oct. 7, 2017, he tore the ACL and meniscus in his proper knee enjoying in a star tag rugby match in Cape City. It was a non-contact damage, and he walked off the Newlands Stadium discipline, albeit in ache. Van Niekerk discussed that day and its effects on his career last year.
Van Niekerk didn’t race once more till February 2019 and, after restoration setbacks, nonetheless hasn’t competed outdoors of small meets in South Africa and Europe.
His greatest 400m time for the reason that damage and operation is 45.58, rating outdoors the highest 70 on this planet for the reason that begin of 2019.
The Tokyo Olympic favorites are Michael Norman, the quickest man on this Olympic cycle at 43.45, and Bahamian Steven Gardiner, who received the 2019 World title in 43.48.
Van Niekerk’s world document in Rio grew to become much more magnetic with the sight of Botha within the stands. The grandmother coached him since 2012, when he enrolled as a advertising and marketing scholar on the College of the Free State in Bloemfontein.
“I’ve such a giant duty to get this athlete to develop to his full potential,” Botha mentioned in 2015, when van Niekerk clocked 43.48 to win the world title and ran himself into such exhaustion that he was taken in an ambulance to a hospital.
“I can’t specific the gratitude I’ve for every thing she has finished to assist me get so far in my profession,” was posted on van Niekerk’s Twitter on Friday. “I’m actually going to overlook Tannie however she is going to at all times be my mentor!”
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Wayde van Niekerk moves from famed coach, heads to U.S. initially appeared on NBCSports.com
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