With Akani Simbine and Caster Semenya showing great form in the build up to the 2016 Olympic Games‚ South Africans have reason to be optimistic about the nation's medal chances in Rio.

On Monday night sprinter Simbine smashed the national record when he ran a time of 9.89 seconds in the 100m at the Istvan Gyulani Memorial in Budabest‚ Hungary.

The SA medal hopeful beat Jamaican star Asafa Powell (9.92) to the finish line to break the South African record of 9.96‚ a mark which Simbine himself had set in Pretoria only four months ago.

The 22-year-old had earlier run a personal best time of 20.16 in the 200m‚ bettering the previous best of 20.23 he had run last year in Beijing.

Not to be outdone‚ 2012 silver medallist Semenya broke the SA record in the 800m at the Diamond League event in Monaco last Friday.

“Congratulations to Simbine and Semenya‚ as well as their coaches and management teams‚” Athletics SA president Aleck Skhosana said.

“These performances show they are on track for the Rio Games‚ and we wish them well in their final preparations.”

In previous Olympics SA’s medals have come mainly from swimmers and track and field athletes.

This is not excpected to change in Rio next month.

“We are hopeful that they will be able to win medals where it matters‚” said Skhosana.

“The battle has been between swimming and athletics in past Olympics since 1992.

“In 2012 we got one [athletics] medal and in previous Games we got more. We will see now how many medals we will get.

“We are not comparing ourselves with swimming‚ but we are saying that we will be there and want to make sure that this country comes back with honour and glory.”