Akani Simbine has the chance to rescript a nightmare journey into one with a fairy-tale ending when he lines up at the famous Herculis meet in Monte Carlo on Friday night.
The 29-year-old South African has been in resurgent form this season and heads into the Diamond League 100m showdown in Monaco as a medal contender ahead of the world championships in Budapest from August 19-27.
Two years ago Simbine was also looking hot going into Monaco, having just set a 9.84 sec African record.
He finished second behind American Ronnie Baker at the 2021 Herculis, beating Italian Marcell Jacobs, Fred Kerley of the US and Canadian Andre De Grasse, who went on to take the three 100m podium places in Tokyo three weeks later.
Simbine ended fourth in Tokyo (and Baker fifth), but the pain of that result lingered for the SA sprinter. He had been in the top five of the world since 2016, but had never landed a big medal.
Making the podium is a tough target; the last time a South African scooped a 100m medal was back at London 1908, when Reggie Walker won Olympic gold.
And since the early 1990s the only sprinters to have been more consistent than Simbine were Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin, and both won multiple Olympic and world championship gongs.
The hurt from the Tokyo Games was palpable and the hangover lasted throughout 2022.
Simbine lost his African and Commonwealth Games crowns to Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala, and at the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, he was beaten in the heats by Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, the two-time under-20 world champion.
Simbine, who somehow still managed to finish fifth at the world championships, looked spent.
But this season he has rediscovered his mojo. The fire in his heart has been restoked and the sparkle in his eyes has returned.
Simbine slapped down Omanyala and Tebogo at the Rabat Diamond League race in late May, and in Poland last Sunday he ended the unbeaten run of world champion Kerley.
Kerley will not be in Monaco, but Omanyala and Tebogo will be, facing off against Simbine for the first time since Morocco.
Omanyala boasts the fastest season’s best of the field, the 9.84 he ran in Nairobi in May, followed by Jamaican Ackeem Blake and American Courtney Lindsey, who have both been 9.89.
Simbine’s top speed this year so far is 9.92, but his experience and ability to handle pressure is worth even more.
Despite everything that went wrong in 2022, he showed his class at the world championships by making the final — neither Omanyala and Tebogo advanced past the semifinals — and finished fifth.
Now Simbine has the opportunity to forge a new journey out of Monaco that will finally get him to the podium in Hungary next month.
Top five is one thing, but it’s time the king of consistency makes it into the top three.
The meet will be broadcast on DStv channel 208 from 8pm.
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