Wayde van Niekerk

Wayde van Niekerk, born on 15 July 1992 in Cape Town, is a South African track and field athlete who competes in the 200m and 400m categories. In 400 meters, he is the Current World and Olympic Record Holder and the Olympic Champion. He also holds the record for world-best time in 300 meters. After determining his future in athletics at the age of 17, Wayde began sprinting in 2009. Wayde made his international debut at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics, where he finished 4^th in 200 meters with a personal best time of 21.02 seconds. Breaking Michael Johnson's 17-year-old world record, he won the Olympic 400m gold medal at just the age of 24, where he produced one of the greatest performances of 2016 Rio Olympics and showed the world that he has the charm to be number one in Track & Field.

Some of his major career achievements:

• In 2011, he won the 200m title at the South African Athletics Championships with a new personal best time of 20.57 seconds.
• Bagged the second national title of his career at the 2013 South African Championships, winning with a sub-46-second time in 400m
• Secured a silver medal in 4 x 400m relay event at the 2013 Summer Universiade
• Claimed a silver medal in 400m sprint with a time of 44.68 seconds at 2014 Commonwealth Games, held in Glasgow
• Won a silver medal in 400m sprint event at the 2014 African Championships in Athletics, held in Marrakesh
• Bagged a gold medal in 4 x 400m relay event at the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup
• Claimed a gold medal in 400m event with a time of 43.48 seconds at the 2015 World Championships and became the fourth-fastest runner of all time
• In 2016, he became the 107th athlete to break the 10-second barrier in 100m and the first individual to break 10 seconds for 100m, 20 seconds for 200m and 44 seconds for 400m.
• Bagged a gold medal in 400m sprint event at the 2016 Rio Olympics with a world record time of 43.03 seconds
• Won 2 gold medals in 200m and 4 x 100m relay event at the 2016 African Championships in Athletics
• In November 2016, he was honoured with the Best Male Athlete of the Rio 2016 Olympics award, presented by the Association of National Olympic Committees.
• Defended his 400m world title and won gold at the 2017 World Championships with a time of 43.98 seconds. Also, he won a silver medal in 200m with a time of 20.11 seconds in the same tournament.
• Became the first South African athlete to bag two individual medals in the sprint at 2017 World Championships