Caster chases Zola Budd’s record with eye on world champs
● Former two-time Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya is looking to break Zola Budd’s 31-year-old 2,000m record when she kick-starts her season in Cape Town on Wednesday.
The 31-year-old, who missed out on qualifying in the 5,000m at the Tokyo Olympics last year, wants to book her ticket to the world championships in the US later this year.
Semenya will race over 3,000m at the second meet of the grand prix series at Green Point stadium, organisers confirmed.
Her agent, Lee-Roy Newton, said Semenya was targeting Budd’s record and ultimately a spot at the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, in July.
The 3,000m is not an Olympic distance, although it is used commonly in competition, unlike the 2,000m.
When barefoot Budd set her 5min 38.07sec record at the old Green Point stadium in 1991, it was a 2,000m race and she was aided by a pacemaker for the first 600m which helped her smash the previous mark of 5:42.15 held by Elana Meyer.
Semenya, who will have training partner Glenrose Xaba to assist her, narrowly missed Budd’s mark in 2019, clocking 5:38.19 in a 2,000m in France.
Her 3,000m best is 9:04.20, achieved in the thin air of Potchefstroom in May last year. The thick coastal air will suit her more. Meyer’s 3,000m national mark is 8:32.00.
Unbeaten over 800m from 2016 to 2019 and owner of six SA records from 300m to 1,500m, Semenya turned to the 5,000m after World Athletics implemented its gender eligibility rules, which require her to take testosterone-lowering medication to compete.
The regulations cover all track events from 400m to the mile. Semenya, demanding she compete freely, is fighting Switzerland in the European Court of Human Rights after that country’s highest court failed to overturn the Court of Arbitration for Sport decision allowing the rules.
The 5,000m is a new challenge for Semenya, having run that distance only seven times five of them last year. As a powerful middle-distance runner, endurance is a new science and art. Her battleground has been short of four full laps, but now she is doing 12,5 circuits. It’s an adjustment she failed to master last year.
Her 5,000m best is 15:32.14, short of the 15:10.00 she needed for Tokyo. That’s the same automatic qualifying time she needs for the world championships.
The two-hour meet, which starts at 6pm, also features a 1,500m showdown between Ryan Mphahlele and Tshepo Tshite; 400m hurdler Zeney van der Walt; and Olympian javelin-thrower Rocco van Rooyen.