Home » Caster Semenya Smashes South Africa’s Oldest Track Record!

Caster Semenya Smashes South Africa’s Oldest Track Record!

Caster Semenya, the Rio Olympics gold medallist and reigning world 800-metre champion broke South Africa’s oldest track record at the Liquid Telkom Athletix Grand Prix at the Tuks Stadium in Pretoria on Thursday night. She won the seldom-run 1000m race in 2min 35.44sec to beat the old mark of 2:37.2 by close on two seconds. […]

By SAPeople
09-03-18 00:30
in Fab South African Stuff

Caster Semenya, the Rio Olympics gold medallist and reigning world 800-metre champion broke South Africa’s oldest track record at the Liquid Telkom Athletix Grand Prix at the Tuks Stadium in Pretoria on Thursday night.

Picture of Semenya courtesy of Reg Caldecott

She won the seldom-run 1000m race in 2min 35.44sec to beat the old mark of 2:37.2 by close on two seconds.

Co-incidentally the old 1983 record was set in Bloemfontein by Ilze Wicksell, now 58 years old, and a sports manager at the High Performance Centre (HPC) in the same city.

Visiting Ugandan athletes Halimah Nakaayi and Winnie Nanyondo were second and third in 2:37.55 and 2:37.98 respectively as Olympic 400m hurdler Wenda Nel performed early pacemaking duties.

Semenya told SABC afterwards: ‘It was a tough race. The pacemaker went too quickly so I was a little disappointed.’

“The main job of a pacemaker is to guide me, not kill me. But at the end of the day I got a new national record so I couldn’t ask for more. It’s fantastic.”

Semenya’s fine form means she’s set up well for a great performance at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games which will be staged in Australia next month between 4-15 April.