17 May 2018

Botswana’s finest runner Isaac Makwala will headline the IAAF World Challenge, SEIKO Golden Grand Prix in Osaka, Japan on Sunday.

The 400m specialist will this time compete in the 200m. On paper he is the strongest in the field with a Personal Best of 19.77.

Makwala’s performance in the last year’s Madrid World Challenge has aroused the athletics community to keep an eye on him to see how he will perform in Osaka.

In Madrid Makwala made a historic double by becoming the first athlete in history to run two events is a short pace of time running 200m recording the World Lead of 19.77 and ran 400m with a good time of 43.92.

On Sunday he will be in the same line up with Dedric Dukes, Brandon Carnes, both from United States, Zhenye Xie from China, Japanese Kenji Fujimitsu, Shota Iizuka, Shota Hara, and Jun Yamashita.

Now the question is will Makwala once again prove to the World that he is not only good in 400m, and once again ‘pull the trigger’ in Osaka and record a good time in the World Challenge meet?

However, his coach Justice Dipeba said in an interview that his athlete was in good shape despite the fact that he was in Botswana and Makwala was in Osaka.

“He is doing great. We keep in touch very well. With the experience that we have gained over a couple years, we are doing well with updates on training through technology,” he said.

Dipeba said the athlete had rested well after the Shanghai Diamond League where he finished on position two with a Season Best of 44.23 after Bahamas athlete Steven Gardiner who stopped the clock with a Meeting Record of 43.99.

Although Makwala’s ambition is to qualify for the Diamond League finals in 200m and 400m, the coach said the 200m in Osaka was not part the Diamond League preparations.

“We are just running it as part of speed work and also taking a break from 400m until the end of this month. We would like to double, even though it is not going to be easy as the finals for both events are on the same day,” he said.

Talking about the Diamond League final double, he said they would still have to make a final decision, adding that the athlete will however run both events on the circuit, as 200m works more as a recovery run for him. ENDS