AKANI Simbine may not have won an Olympic medal but South Africa’s prince of sprints has won the hearts of many with his brave performance in Rio.
Simbine shares a room with Wayde van Niekerk, the new 400m world record holder (43.03sec) and Olympic champion, in the athletes’ village.
He revealed that they had watched the game between Liverpool and Arsenal to relax their nerves before the biggest races of their careers.
Simbine told SunSport: “We just chilled and watched the Liverpool game and a movie to take our minds off the race.”
Simbine has not entered the 200m event as he had decided to focus only on the 100m sprint event.
His next race is the Paris Diamond League in a few weeks’ time.
Simbine and Van Niekerk were also together in camp in Italy, preparing for the Olympics, and the two are good friends off the track.
In a very fast field of top athletes, Simbine gave everything he had on the Olympic Stadium track – and he came very close to stealing the bronze medal too.
In the end he finished fifth in the 100m final measuring up very well against some of the biggest names in the sprinting world.
He even got a hug from Olympic champion Usain Bolt and words of encouragement after their epic race. Simbine and Van Niekerk had trained with Bolt in Jamaica a couple of weeks ago.
No 1 attraction and Jamaica’s favourite son Bolt took gold with 9.81sec, ahead of United States speedster Justin Gatlin, who bagged silver in 9.89sec and Canadian Andre De Grasse, who raced home in third place in 9.91sec.
Simbine finished a mere hundredth of a second behind Jamaica’s Yohan Blake, who registered 9.93sec.
The University of Pretoria-based athlete finished ahead of African champion Ben Youssef of Ivory Coast, who clocked 9.96sec.
Simbine, who achieved the sixth fastest qualifying time of 9.98sec in his semifinal, was proud of his own performance. He said: “I’m proud to have run in the Olympics against the best. I saw Gatlin on my right but couldn’t see Bolt.”
Bolt, who did his famous pose as he celebrated – to huge cheers from the crowd – said he was still hungry for more: “I had goose bumps, the crowd gave me unbelievable energy. I would like to thank everyone for the support.”
On SA’s star sprinter, he said: “Akani has a bright future. His turn will come.”
Simbine revealed that Bolt had been very supportive of him, saying he hoped he too could win an Olympic medal in the future.
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