Akani Simbine wins 100m sprint final as South African duo stun Jamaican Yohan Blake
YOHAN Blake won’t be going back to Jamaica any time soon given his failure to fulfil Usain Bolt’s orders to deliver Jamaica the 100m Commonwealth title.
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YOHAN Blake won’t be going back to Jamaica any time soon given his failure to fulfil Usain Bolt’s orders to deliver Jamaica the 100m Commonwealth title.
The second fastest man in history was upstaged by a flying South African Akani Simbine who seized on a horror start by the race favourite to claim a surprise gold medal.
In the end it was a thrashing.
Simbine, 24, stopped the clock at 10.03sec — the same time as Asafa Powell clocked in Melbourne in 2006 — with daylight second.
Bolt, who is expected to arrive on the Gold Coast in the next 48 hours, had sent a message to his countryman telling him to ‘win or else you can’t go back home’.
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What will upset Bolt even more is the fact South Africa now has bragging rights in the sprinting world with Simbine’s training partner Henricho Bruintjies wining the silver medal (10.17sec).
Blake, the 2011 world champion with a personal best of 9.69sec, was lucky to get on the podium, getting bronze in a disappointing 10.19sec.
He had run 10.06sec in the semi-finals to be the fastest qualifier into the final.
Immediately after the race, Bolt reached out to his former training partner, tweeting: “Well done @YohanBlake. Keep putting in the work. You know your journey.”
It is the first time the men’s sprint title has been away from the Caribbean for two decades.
It's an upset in the men's 100m Final! South Africa go 1-2 with 🇿🇦 Akani Simbine taking gold, 🇿🇦 Henricho Bruintjies silver and 🇯🇲 Yohan Blake bronze.#7CommGames #GC2018 pic.twitter.com/SR6eEJ6Wbl
— 7CommGames (@7CommGames) 9 April 2018
Well done @YohanBlake
— Usain St. Leo Bolt (@usainbolt) April 9, 2018
Keep putting in the work. You know your journey 🙌ðŸ½ðŸ™ŒðŸ½
The bad news continued for the Jamaicans in the women’s 100m final where they had to settle for the minor medals.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Michelle-Lee Ahye finally shed her bridesmaid tag becoming the first woman from her country to win a gold medal in track and field at a Commonwealth Games.
Ahye, 25, produced a stunning start and was never really in danger to win in 11.14sec from Jamaican pair Christania Williams (11.21sec) and Gayon Evans (11.22sec).
She had finished sixth in the 100m at both the 2016 Rio Olympics and last year’s world championships in London.
The final was without its main drawcards with Olympic champion Elaine Thompson electing to focus only on the 200m.
There was no doubt about who the drawcard was in the men’s race was with all the publicity in the lead-up centred around Blake stepping up as Bolt’s predecessor.
But Simbine, the South African record holder, has always shown serious talent and ran 9.94sec in the 2016 Rio Olympic final where he finished fifth — one behind Blake.
The performance of third placegetter Bruintjies had an Australian twist given he only made the final at the expense of Rohan Browning.
It was only a thousandth of a second between them with Bruintjies and Browning both awarded a time of 10.26sec in the semi-final but the South African got the nod for the crucial automatic qualifying birth.
Simbine now puts his name in the mix as a replacement for Bolt.
The new breed was set to be led by South Africa’s 400m world record holder Wayde van Niekerk who won the 200m silver medal in London.
American Christian Coleman put himself in the mix last year while Canada’s Andre De Grasse was the one who challenged Bolt at the Rio Olympics.
Both Van Njekerk and De Grasse were expected to be on the Gold Coast but injuries caused them to miss.
Originally published as Akani Simbine wins 100m sprint final as South African duo stun Jamaican Yohan Blake