Akani Simbine's tricky journey to the World Championships: Can he maintain his form?

Akani Simbine has been in red-hot form and is currently up there as one of the fastest men on the planet.

The South African sprint king ran another blistering anchor leg to guide the country’s 4x100 team to victory at the World Relay Championships in Guangzhou, China on Sunday. This follows his sparkling run to help the team claim the silver medal at last year’s Paris Olympic Games.

Simbine hauled in American Brandon Hicklin after receiving the baton, using his great finishing speed to bring glory to South Africa. There is no official time for his leg, but he may have dipped under the nine-second mark from that running start.

Simbine has run a few sub-10 races in the 100m this season, storming to victory in 9.90 in a race in Botswana before winning two Diamond League events in China, blitzing a fields that included 200m Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo, American speedster Christian Coleman, 60m world indoor champion Jeremiah Azu of Britain and Olympic silver medalist Kishane Thompson.

Speaking after the relay semi-finals on Sunday, Simbine lifted the lid on his wonderful form this year.

"It's just a lot of happiness. I'm very content with my career and my running and where it is at," Simbine said. "I'm enjoying the sport, being able to travel the world and just run."

The 31-year-old Simbine’s big focus this year is on the World Championships to be held in Tokyo, Japan from September 13-21. He is probably wishing the big athletics event could take place next week, instead of four months’ time.

The concern with Simbine has always been peaking too early because the South African season starts a lot earlier than the one in the United States and Europe because of our end-of-year summer season.

His preparation is totally different to his Northern Hemisphere rivals, who work towards being at their peak by the end of their summer. Essentially, Simbine needs to stay at his peak a lot longer than others because of the situation.

However, he showed at last year’s Olympic Games that he can keep his best performances for the Northern Hemisphere summer when he narrowly missed out on the medal in the final of the 100m, running a new South African record of 9.82 in the most closely contested 100m race of all time. 

He made up for that disappointment when he led the SA 4X100m team to the silver a few days later, but he will be desperate to get onto the podium in Japan.

Simbine is definitely in the best shape of his life and running fast, but at his age he will have to pace himself over the next four months to maintain that speed heading into the world championships.

It’s going to be another tough ask, but he has shown that he has the mental fortitude to take on the challenge. That never say die spirit, which we saw at the Olympics and Sunday’s 100m relay final rubber stamps that statement.

@JohnGoliath82