Bayanda Walaza struck down his rivals with his trademark lightning start to win the 200m in Lima, Peru, on Friday night (Saturday morning SA time) to claim the first mens sprint double at the under-20 world championships in 26 years.
Walaza, a member of the South African 4x100m relay team that won Olympic silver in Paris, built up a massive lead as he bounded around the bend to give himself a massive cushion heading into the home straight.
And the Pretoria-based matric pupil needed it, holding off fast-finishing 16-year-old Australian Gout Gout to cross the line first in 20.52sec. Gout was second in a 20.60 personal best and Jake Odey-Jordan of Great Britain was third in 20.81.
The 18-year-old Walaza, who had taken the 100m crown earlier in the week using the same bullet-out-the-blocks technique, became the first man since Briton Christian Malcolm to bag the 100m and 200m titles at a single age-group championships.
He is only the fourth man to achieve this double after Nigerian Francis Obikwelu at Sydney 1996 and Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago at Seoul 1992.
