Wayde van Niekerk: The race for my 400m world record
The men’s 400m world record has been safe since Wayde van Niekerk’s incredible run from lane eight with no real challengers emerging over the last seven years. The South African is hellbent on lowering his mark but there are other potential candidates. Olympics.com compares the times side-by-side.
Athletics
Rated as one of the greatest moments at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Wayde van Niekerk’s world-record run from lane eight remains the greatest 400m races of all time.
Before the South African’s career-threatening knee injury at the end of 2017, Van Niekerk was primed to take the one-lap sprint into a new realm.
In Rio de Janeiro he wiped out the world record American great Michael Johnson held since 1999, earning him a place in Olympic history with a phenomenal time of 43.03 seconds.
Van Niekerk has since made his intentions clear of becoming the first man to break through the 43-second barrier – a milestone that was a hair’s breadth within reach.
Growing in stature and in confidence after Rio 2016, Van Niekerk looked well on his way to shifting the barrier after winning back-to-back 400m world titles on a wet and dreary London evening in 2017.
The race for the 400m world record: The main candidates
The wave Van Niekerk was riding up to that point broke when he got injured during a tag rugby match resulting in an arduous journey to get back onto the track.
Van Niekerk nor any other man has been able to come close to his world record from Rio while the world title has exchanged hands twice.
The last two 400m world champions, Bahamian Steven Gardiner (2019) and American Michael Norman (2022), have emerged as potential candidates to break Van Niekerk’s global mark.
Norman’s personal best of 43.45s from 2019 makes him the joint-fourth fastest man in history while Olympic champion Gardiner is ranked sixth with his world title winning time of 43.48s from the same year. The duo is also among a select few that have run five or more sub-44 times over the one-lap sprint.
Gardiner already has one global mark behind his name after he set a 300m indoor world best of 31.56s in South Carolina at the beginning of 2022. Van Niekerk holds the outdoor 300m world best of 30.81s from 2017. The record-breaking performance in Ostrava, Czech Republic saw Van Niekerk become the first man to run sub-10, sub-20, sub-31 and sub-44 times at 100m, 200m, 300m and 400m respectively.
Norman, in turn, holds the indoor 400m world record of 44.52s he clocked in College Station, Texas in 2018 as a student. The 25-year-old along with Van Niekerk and world 100m champion Fred Kerley are the only three men to have gone sub-10 for 100m, sub-20 for 200m and sub-44 for 400m.
But Gardiner has been hamstrung by injury missing last year’s world championships in Oregon while Norman may be lost to the 400m should a switch to the shorter sprints bare fruit.
Wayde van Niekerk, Steven Gardiner and Michael Norman's 10 best 400m times
Can Wayde van Niekerk do it again?
Which brings us back to Van Niekerk, who has over the last year shown flashes of his brilliance.
Van Niekerk went into the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games undercooked with only few races behind his name which saw him missing out on the final.
Reaching last year’s world championship final where he finished in a creditable fifth place was the shot in the arm Van Niekerk needed. He announced his return at the end of 2022 when he clocked his fastest time since 2017 clocking 44.33s to beat former world champion Kirani James.
His 2023 campaign has been even more promising with the South African again demonstrating his smooth gliding running action the handful of times he has been in action. Van Niekerk reclaimed his national 400m title at the national championships in South Africa in April posting a time of 44.17s which is ranked the ninth fastest of his career.
The incremental improvements suggest it is only a matter of time before Van Niekerk is back in sub-44 territory which would instil in him the belief that his world record is back in play.
Speaking exclusively to Olympics.com in March, Van Niekerk spoke with conviction about his belief in his own ability to shift barriers.
“When I speak about personal growth, breaking the record and going sub-43 is the next step in the 400m, and that would be the natural move for me when it comes to growth,” Van Niekerk said.
"I am still in the sport because I believe I have room for growth and can improve. I guess that the mentality at the moment is to improve.”