Pretoria - Twenty-year-old Clarence Munyai has broken Wayde van Niekerk's 200m South African record at the ASA Senior Championships at Tuks Stadium in Pretoria.
Running in the semi-finals of the meet on Friday, Munyai stunned the crowd in attendance with his pace.
Van Niekerk, currently recovering from a serious knee injury, has held the record since June 2017.
Munyai, meanwhile, has enhanced his reputation as one of South Africa's brightest prospects in sprinting.
He won gold in the 200m at last year's Africa Under-20 Championships in Algeria where he ran 20.22, but he smashed that time on Friday by setting a new SA record of 19.69.
That time is just one-hundredth of a second off the African record of 19.68 set by Namibia's Frankie Fredericks at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.
The world record remains the 19.19 set by Usain Bolt in 2009.
Van Niekerk's SA record was 19.84.
Munyai had also competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where he ran in the 200m, but was eliminated after finishing third in his heat in a time of 20.66 as he failed to qualify for the semi-finals.
SA record! @clarence_munyai clocks 19.69 in the 200m semifinals. The time will need to be ratified, but that's a fantastic performance! #topuptuks
— Athletics_SA (@AthleticsSA_) March 16, 2018
Clarence Munyai with his SA record clock. Lightning pic.twitter.com/55tsfQ3VlQ
— Wesley Botton (@wesbotton) March 16, 2018