Semenya vows to go faster after winning in Green Point

CASTER SEMENYA wowed a sparse but enthusiastic crowd with an 800m Olympic qualifying time in the Athletics South Africa Night Series at the Green Point Athletics Stadium last night.

But the former world champion and Olympic silver medallist said afterwards that she can go much faster, and is aiming for a sub-two-minute time at the SA National Championships in Stellenbosch in April.

The 25-year-old Semenya, pictured, didn’t have much opposition in her race and had to run in front from the start. She pulled off a fairly quick time of around 60 seconds for the opening lap, and managed to maintain her speed to the end to finish in a time of 2min 00.23sec.

Second-placed Liza Kellerman was over six seconds behind in 2:06.73.

“Yeah, I am quite happy with the time. The way I ran my splits, we are more even, so that’s the main thing for us. That’s what we’ve been working for during these past two months. So I’m happy with the work, and now I have to go back and try to train for under two minutes,” Semenya said afterwards.

“It’s all about hard work, the mentality. Physically. If you combine all those ele- ments, nothing can defeat you. So it doesn’t matter who is in the race and if you are alone. The race is all about times.”

Semenya ran a 400m personal best of 51.47 recently as part of her speed work for the 800m, and said she could even compete in the shorter distance at the Rio Olympics in August.

“We have to go back a bit – we’ve run two minutes, and we want to maybe run one race before the SA’s (national championships), and then we want to go under the two- minute barrier at the SA’s,” she said.

“We want to go at least 50 (seconds) in the 400m, so it can be easier for the European season. The main thing now is to just run behind the pace-maker, so we can run better times.

“We haven’t decided yet (on running 400m at Olympics), but I hope so! But it’s not about me – it’s all about the teamwork with the guys and see if we can manage a five-day programme without a rest.”

The other big-name athlete to shine on the night was 100m sprinter Henricho Bruintjies, who clocked 10.26sec. It was some way off his personal best of 9.97, and Akani Simbine’s SA record of 9.96, but it was a reasonable time at sea-level.

“The time was a really good time, running at coastal level. And I think it was my season’s best, so I’m happy with the time. I think there’s still a lot of time (to run an Olympic qualifying time)... and I’ve run a qualifying time last year already in the qualification period. So, I think I just need to pull out one or two good races to show that I’m in form,” he said.

There was a thrilling finish in the men’s 400m hurdles, where LJ van Zyl was pushed all the way by Lindsay Hanekom.