Wayde Van Niekerk
Wayde van Niekerk is the uncontested 400-metre Olympic champion and world record holder. The track and field champion from South Africa has been sprinting into the record books and the highest podiums in the world. This long trek would not have been possible without patience, humility and dedication.
‘I am personally always physically chasing time to make myself better, to improve as an athlete. In the end, time means progress for me. I don’t think I have any limits. As long as I’m in good health and I stay motivated, I’ll keep going faster.’
Wayde Van Niekerk
While Wayde had initially set his sights on the 100 and 200-metre sprints for maximum speed, he heeded the advice of his coach Anna Sophia who encouraged him to focus on the 400-metre race. His rise to fame came in 2014, with two silver medals in the 400-metre sprint at the African Championships and the New York Diamond League Race, as well as a gold medal in the 4 x 100-metre relay race. In 2015, a world championship title was the crowning glory of a season from which he emerged unbeaten in the 200 and 400-metre.
A partner since 2016, Wayde wears the RM 67-02 Automatic Sprint which was specifically developed for optimum comfort, technical sophistication and dynamic lines.
‘In Richard’s watches, every detail is important and nothing is superfluous; the same applies to me as a sportsman dealing with challenges in the domain of microseconds that differentiate winning and losing.’
Wayde Van Niekerk
At the beginning of 2016, he took part in the 100-metre dash for the first time in five years and completed the race in 9”98, becoming the first sprinter to hold a personal best under 10 seconds in the 100-metres, 20 seconds in the 200-metre and 44 seconds in the 400-metre sprints. In June, the still unvanquished athlete set a new record for the African continent and the world’s third best time ever in the 300-metre dash. In 2016, Wayde achieved one of the year’s most spectacular feats, crossing the finishing line of the 400-metre dash in 43”03, fifteen hundredths of a second faster than the world record set in 1999 by Michael Johnson. Since 2018, he has also held the world record for the 300-metre.