South Africa’s Olympic silver medal 4x100m relay team crashed out of the world championships in Tokyo on Sunday morning after running too slowly in their time trial.
They had needed to match 38.34 sec while running by themselves in lane 6, but they never quite ignited as they went around the National Stadium track in 38.64.
The required time equated to the 12th fastest time ever run by a South African quartet, which set the 37.57 national record finishing second at the Paris Games last year. They had been quicker on five occasions in the past two years.
Shaun Maswanganyi clocked 10.50 on the opening leg on Sunday, with Sinesipho Dambile going 9.27. Bradley Nkoana completed the bend in 9.68 and Akani Simbine finished it off in 9.19.
In the heats at World Relays in China in May South Africa set the fastest pace, a 37.84. There Bayanda Walaza, who got injured shortly before the world championships, went 10.50 in the opening leg.
Dambile went down the back straight in 9.00, Nkoana 9.26 and Simbine 9.08. The same four sped up in the evening to win the final in 37.61.
Maswanganyi, Nkoana and Simbine were in the Olympic quartet in France.
The South Africans had to do the rerun on Sunday after they faltered in their heats on Saturday night, after an unintentional collision between Maswanganyi and Italy’s Marcel Jacobs, the former Olympic 100m champion.
Maswanganyi stopped running.
South Africa appealed and were given the chance of doing the time trial, with referees telling them they needed to match the time run by the slowest of the eight qualifiers, France.
Italy failed to qualify.
But had Maswanganyi pushed ahead and let the baton get around the track, South Africa would probably have been given an automatic spot in the final on appeal without a rerun.
South Africa’s last chance of a medal now rests with the men’s 4x400m team who are in action on Sunday night (1.25pm SA time), but their task was made more difficult on Sunday morning when the US team advanced to the final in another rerun ordered after appeals on Saturday.
The Americans beat Kenya by nearly two seconds in a two-team race-off, clocking 2 min 58.48 sec, the fourth-fastest time of the heats that pushes South Africa’s seeding down to fifth.
South Africa is bidding to win its first world championship medal since London 2017, having left empty-handed from Doha 2019, Oregon 2022 and Budapest 2023.
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