He has been in good form this season with a couple of Diamond League wins, but not many saw Ramil Guliyev becoming a World Champion this year as he stunned the field to win the men’s 200m title on Thursday at the World Championships in London.
Guliyev executed a good race plan, staying with Wayde Van Niekerk all through and then out-dipped the South African to win with a time of 20.09s.
To futher explain the significance of Guliyev’s win, he is the first athlete ever to win a GOLD medal for Turkey at a World Championship.
The race was so close that all of the Top 3 finishers could have swapped places on the podium as they got to the line at almost the same time.
Van Niekerk, who narrowly made the 200m final as one of the fastest losers, produced a good performance in the final and could have completed the double, an achievement that would have put him on the same pedestal as Michael Johnson who won both the 200m and 400m in 1995.
The South African settled for Silver in 20.11s (.106), just marginally edging out Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards who was impressive all through the rounds, recording the same time of 20.11s (,107) as Van Niekerk.
What an inspirational story it would have been for World Leader Isaac Makwala if he had won, considering the torrid three days he has had. Unfortunately, the Botswana athlete ended up in 6th position in 20.44s.
“This is not a shock but this does not feel real. I am so proud. This title means a lot” Guliyev said after his win.
“I have shown my best throughout this competition. I delivered my best race at the right time. I’m so happy to be world champion. This is the best moment of my career.
“I was competing against some of the best athletes in the world, so it didn’t bother me that the attention was on them. Maybe at the next competition everyone will look at me instead,” the Turkish athlete added.
