Records fall as SA teams produce two silvers at World Relays

South Africa’s 4x100m and 4x400m teams blasted out national records as they landed two silvers at the World Relays competition in Gaborone on Sunday.

That might have been a downgrade on their golds from last year, but they stepped up their performances in fine style.

The race of the day was the men’s 4x400m where the partisan crowd cheered the favourite Botswana team — the reigning world champions — to victory in a hard-fought fight against SA and Australia.

Mthi Mthimkulu was second after the first lap and then Lythe Pillay delivered the fastest leg of the final, pounding out a 42.66sec to overhaul Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and put the South Africans in front.

If those splits are correct, Pillay now owns the fastest relay lap in history, improving on the 42.91 run by American superstar Michael Johnson in 1993.

Leendert Koekemoer ran bravely, but was pipped to the handover by Bayapo Ndori.

Zakithi Nene had the unenviable task of duelling with world 400m champion Collen Kebinatshipi, but he took the fight right in to the home straight, with Aidan Murphy also in the mix.

The home side crossed the line first in a 2min 54.47sec championship record, with SA second in 2:55.07 to become the third-fastest team of all time.

The Olympic champion US, who didn’t enter a team, own the 2:54.29 world record from 1993.

South Africa’s time was nearly two-and-a-half seconds quicker than the 2:57.50 they ran while winning gold in China in 2025, and it was more than 2.5sec quicker than their bronze-winning effort at the world championships in Tokyo last year.

Nene clocked 43.65 over the final 400m, but the Botswana team — including Tebogo — produced three sub-40 laps. Kebinatshipi went 43.09, the second-fastest behind Pillay.

Rugby has the Springboks and the Blitzboks, but athletics has the 4x400m and 4x100m teams.

Akani Simbine anchored the South African 4x100m team to a 37.49 African record, taking silver behind the US, the winners in 37.43.

This was a team that was supposed to hit by injuries, missing both Bayanda Walaza and Sinesipho Dambile, but they gelled as if they’d been doing this for years.

The handovers from Mvuyo Moss to Cheswill Johnson to Bradley Nkoana were slick, and perhaps if the final exchange to Akani Simbine had been a tad neater there might have been a different result.

Simbine was breathing down the neck of American Pjai Austin on the line.

It might have been gold, but their time made them the sixth-fastest team of all-time, behind Jamaica, US, Britain, Japan and Canada.

The Olympic champion Canadians were unable to perform on the day, missing out on the podium, and a powerful British unit failed to get the baton around.

The other good news for SA is that the mixed 4x400m team secured a spot at the 2027 world championships in Beijing, joining the men’s 4x100m and 4x400m teams on the relay roster there.

Bradley Maponyane, running the third leg, pushed to the front and Marlie Viljoen, who surrendered the lead to Nigeria on the back straight, stormed back to claim the win in 3:12.77.

They were more than 1.5sec slower than the four who had competed on Saturday — the only change was Maponyane for Pillay — but all they needed to do was get to China.

The women’s 4x400m team, stacked with youth and missing the country’s four fastest, made a valiant effort, finishing third in their heat in 3:27.78. Their time on Saturday would have got them through to China.

They have time to secure one of the four remaining women’s 4x400m spots between now and next year.

The women’s 4x100m team were well off the pace, finishing fourth in 43.56, but even the 43.22 national record they ran on Saturday would not have been enough.

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