The Commonwealth Games will never rival the Olympics for drama and storyline, but yesterday’s 100 metre final is one that will be talked about for a long time.
Especially if you’re a South African, because two of our local lads tore up the script on their way to a gold / silver double.
Of course it’s Akani Simbine that will take most of the plaudits, beating out favoured Jamaican speedster Yohan Blake quite comfortably, but a shout out to Henricho Bruintjies who knocked Blake down into bronze.
Before we revel in the world’s shock, let’s go to the video.
Via this SuperSport tweet, look at our boys go:
WATCH: South African duo @AkaniSimbine and @KINGBRUINTJIES won goldand silver in the men’s 100m final.#CommonwealthGames pic.twitter.com/dVGvqF2Wgp
— SuperSport (@SuperSportTV) April 9, 2018
Hell yeah.
Wayde van Niekerk was pretty stoked, too, with his wife tweeting this short video:
Hey @AkaniSimbine, your brother lost his mind here…. pic.twitter.com/qBENvLkPYP
— Chesney van Niekerk (@Neshney) April 9, 2018
Shout, brother.
So how did CNN take the news? They were shook, running the headline “Yohan Blake defeated as South African springs shock victory in 100m final”:
He’s got two Olympic and two World Championship golds and is second only to Usain Bolt as the fastest sprinter in athletics history, but that impressive pedigree proved no use for Yohan Blake in the 100-meter Commonwealth Games final on Monday.
Instead the comparatively unknown South African sprinter Akani Simbine stunned the field to take gold…
Blake pointed to his poor start as the reason behind his failure to live up to his reputation as favorite [sic] …
“I’ve been feeling great but I was stumbling and I just couldn’t recover from it. I got up running but I couldn’t catch them. I’m a bit disappointed. I was supposed to take this very easily. It was never meant to be I guess.”
It wasn’t, because then we wouldn’t get to enjoy a photo like this:
Well played, champs.
[source:cnn]
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