Caster shows her versatility

Delivering a superb performance once again last week, and raking in yet another national title, Caster Semenya flaunted her versatility by closing out her season in style, and her latest effort proves just how good she really is.

Since being sidelined from middle-distance events for the second time in her career due to international gender rules, Semenya has produced some solid results, stretching her impressive range after apparently refusing to take hormone suppressants in order to compete against women over distances between 400m and 1 500m.

After losing multiple appeals in her long-running battle against World Athletics in European courts, Semenya has opted to tackle the longer 5 000m distance.

At first, it seemed the massive step up from her specialist 800m distance might be beyond her, and Semenya looked to be too strong and powerful to compete in an event which favours shorter, lighter athletes who possess as much endurance as they do speed.

But she has done well this season to cement her place as one of the country’s best 5 000m runners, competing at the African Championships in Mauritius in June and the World Championships in Eugene in July.

Between 2017 and 2020 she broke the South African records in the 400m (49.62), 800m (1:54.25), 1 000m (2:30.70) and 1 500m (3:59.92) events, and she set a national best over the unofficial 300m distance (36.78) as well as a world best over 600m (1:21.77).

And her dominant victory over the weekend in the senior women’s 4km race at the SA Cross Country Championships in Rustenburg proved again just how capable she is in longer events.

The three-time 800m world champion coasted across the grass and the dirt and powered her way over makeshift hills, making it look easy against a second-string field as she coasted to the national 4km title.

Her remarkable consistency, versatility and longevity have made her both popular among fans and feared by opponents, regardless of the distance or the surface.