Botswana's Isaac Makwala, who won the 400m at the inaugural Liquid Telecom Athletix Grand Prix series meeting in Roodepoort last week, has his sights set on breaking the 31 second barrier in the rare 300m this Thursday.
Makwala will only be the fourth athlete to go under 31sec should he accomplish the feat during the second leg of the series, at the University of Pretoria (TUKS).
South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk holds the world best of 30.81sec (Ostrava, 28 June 2017), having broken the previous record set by Michael Johnson of 30.85sec (Tshwane, 24 March 2000) and Usain Bolt (30.97sec - Ostrava, 27 May 2010).
"I did not go flat out in the 400m on Thursday because I still had the 200m a bit later in the evening. But there is only the 300m for me this Thursday, so I feel very confident about getting close to that sub 31sec," said Makwala in a media release.
After running national records for both the 200m (19.77Ssec - 14 July) and 300m (31.44sec - Ostrava, 10 June) last year, the 31-year-old Batwana has clearly grown in confidence. He also holds the 400m national record for Botswana, 43.72sec run at La Chaux-de-Fonds in 2015.
He will line up against Pieter Conradie, who was third in Ruimsig (45.77sec) and young Thapelo Phora, who ran a Personal Best of 45.39sec to finish second behind Makwala last week.
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