Caster Semenya can do it all! The Olympic 800m champion proved that she can be a serious threat in the 400m in future by winning the one-lap event at the Diamond League final in Brussels on Friday night.
And, not to be outdone by a fellow South African, Luvo Manyonga underlined his Rio silver medal with an astonishing new personal best of 8.48m to win the long jump competition.
The 25-year-old 800m specialist Semenya had entered the shorter distance as there wasn’t an 800m race at the Memorial van Damme meeting to round off her season.
Having won the 400m, 800m and 1 500m titles at the South African championships in Stellenbosch in April, Semenya did have some experience of running the sprint event.
Not much would’ve been expected from the two-time Olympic medallist, though, but no one told Semenya that. She was quite slow out of the blocks, and over the first 200m was well behind favourite Stephenie Ann McPherson of Jamaica, who was the Diamond Race leader for the 400m.
Semenya looked like she was running an 800m race, so slow was her pace as she appeared to be jogging, while the rest of the field was going all out.
Semenya started moving up the field at around the 250m mark, although she was still well behind the front-runners. But once she hit the home straight, it was almost as if she flicked a switch in what was reminiscent of her gold-medal run at the Rio Olympics in the 800m.
She finally got into her stride, and with about 40m to go, she was ranging up on the shoulder of McPherson. The Jamaican fought hard, along with American Courtney Okolo, but as they got closer to the line, it was Semenya who pushed in front and then dipped on the line to just edge out her two main rivals.
The South African took a tumble as she leaned forward, but it was all worth it as not only did she pull off a remarkable victory, but also set a new personal best of 50.40, well clear of her previous mark of 50.74.
Semenya nearly competed in the 400m in Rio too, but pulled out at the last moment to concentrate on winning the 800m title. She got the job done in Brazil, but based on her 400m win in Brussels, she can be a real medal contender in the shorter distance at the world championships in London next year if she runs a few more sprints in the new season.
Manyonga followed up Semenya’s superb performance with a career-best display himself. His coach Neil Cornelius told Independent Media on Thursday that his athlete was just going to enjoy the night, but that he “always has a big jump in him”.
And the Tuks athlete brought out the biggest of them all with a dramatic leap of 8.48m in the fifth round, which was just 2cm off Khotso Mokoena’s South African record of 8.50m.
The 25-year-old Manyonga hit the board at exactly the right spot, using the full length of it and flying through to the air to come down 10cm off the 2016 world lead of 8.58m by American Jarrion Lawson, who finished third on Friday in 8.04m.
The duo were separated by Australia’s Fabrice Lapierre, who took the Diamond Race title by ending second in 8.17m.
But the night belonged to Manyonga, who has finally broken through to the big time after years of battling injuries and personal issues off the track. He was the world junior champion in 2010, and has a great chance of emulating that achievement at senior level in London next August.
Meanwhile, joint 100m national record holder Carina Horn also wound up her Diamond League campaign in satisfactory fashion with a time of 11.14 to finish fifth on Friday night.
Horn didn’t have the best of starts as she was up against Olympic champion Elaine Thompson of Jamaica, as well as Dutch star Dafne Schippers.
Thompson sped away from the rest of the field to win the Diamond Race in a blistering time of 10.72, which was also a new meeting record, with Schippers second in 10.97.
Horn will be glad to have run another quick time, which was just 0.08 of a second off her SA mark of 11.06, and she will complete her year with a street race in Newcastle on Saturday.
The other South African track star in action in Brussels, Wenda Nel, came home in sixth in the 400m hurdles in a time of 55.41, with the race won by American Cassandra Tate in a season’s best of 54.47.
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