Caster ready to rumble in Rabat

JOHANNESBURG: Given Caster Semenya’s current form, she could give the 1000m world best a scare at the Rabat Diamond League meeting tonight.

She set a new South African 1000m best of 2min 35.43sec earlier this year in Pretoria, knocking almost two seconds off Ilze Wicksell’s time set in 1983.

Although her national record is almost seven seconds slower than Russian Svetlana Masterkova’s world best of 2:28.98, she has been on a roll this season.

Semenya posted the fourth fastest 800m time ever in Paris a fortnight ago when she clocked 1:54.25. The 1000m race will be the perfect dress rehearsal for the Monaco Diamond League meeting in a week’s time when Semenya could become only the third woman to dip below 1:54.

Semenya, middle-distance athlete Dominique Scott-Efurd and long jumper Zarck Visser will be the only South Africans in the Moroccan capital.

Scott-Efurd has been a model of consistency, improving on her best times in almost every race.

She will line up in the 5000m buoyed by the personal best she clocked at the Eugene Diamond League meet in May.

The US-based athlete chopped almost 10 seconds off her previous PB finishing eighth in 15:10.23.

She will be looking to make further inroads towards joining Elana Meyer as the only SA woman to dip below 15 minutes.

Visser will be looking to continue his revival after a stellar performance in Germany two weeks ago.

Visser’s jump of 8.40m was his best effort in three years and the first time since 2015 that he managed to jump over 8.30m.

He set his personal best of 8.41m at the same jumpers meeting in Germany back in 2015.