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Johannesburg - Anaso Jobodwana shrugged off his false start from the 100m heats to comfortably qualify for the semi-finals of the men’s 200m at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing on Tuesday.
He will be joined in the semis by compatriot Akani Simbine who came within a whisker of a final berth in the 100m final on Monday.
Jobodwana made it look easy in his heat of the men’s 200m as he crossed the line in first place with a time of 20.22.
Simbine shaved 0.04 seconds off his personal best in the half-lap sprint finishing his heat in a close fourth-place, clocking 20.23.
Although he missed out on an automatic qualification, his time was among the three fastest "losers" for a place in the semi-finals.
Jobodwana is well on his way to booking a place in his second world championships 200m final after he finished fifth at the 2013 Moscow edition.
Since his eighth-place finish at the 2012 London Olympics, Jobodwana has demonstrated his class as a championship runner.
Earlier in 2013 Jobodwana made more strides in the world sprinting rankings when he claimed the rare 100-200m double at the World University Games in Kazan, Russia.
In May he broke Morne Nagel’s South African 200m record in the Caribbean before shaving 0.02 seconds off the record two weeks later.
Jobodwana would later relinquish his national record to Wayde van Niekerk who became the first South African to dip below 20 seconds in the 200m posting a time of 19.94 in July.
Simbine, the joint-100m record holder with Henricho Bruintjies, finished his semi-final in the 100m in fourth place with a time of 10.02. Had he gone 0.04 faster he would've featured in the final.
