Cape Town - She ran a two-minute 800m in her first race in that distance two weeks ago at Green Point Stadium, and now Caster Semenya is about to hit the Western Cape once again.
The 800m Olympic silver medallist will continue her build-up to the South African national championships later this month by doing more speed work in Stellenbosch on Thursday at the final Varsity Athletics event at Coetzenburg.
The SA championships will take place at the same venue on the weekend of April 15-16.
Semenya has made steady progress in the 400m this year, running a Varsity record of 52.21 seconds in Pretoria in early March before improving her personal best even further with a 51.47 a week later in Potchefstroom.
The 25-year-old proceeded to her opening 800m race ahead of the Rio Olympics in August on March 22 with an impressive time of 2 minutes 00.23 seconds at the Athletics South Africa Night Series meet at Green Point Stadium.
Semenya said afterwards that she was considering competing in the 400m in Rio as well, but was currently using it to push herself under two minutes in the 800m. She spoke about running a faster first lap in the longer distance, as two splits of under 60 seconds will ensure she goes closer to her personal best of 1:55.45.
Her main aim in the 400m sprint is to break 50 seconds, which would eclipse Heide Seyerling’s South African record of 50.05 that was set at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Other notable entrants at Thursday’s meet include men’s long jumper Ruswahl Samaai, 800m runner Rynardt van Rensburg, women’s 200m and 400m sprinter Justine Palframan, high jumper Julia du Plessis and long jump champion Lynique Prinsloo, who recorded a season’s best of 6.69m in Germiston in late February, which is just 24cm off Karin Mey’s SA mark of 6.93m.