Caster Semenya runs a new personal best in a 3000m win in Cape Town

The two-time Olympic gold medalist, who is eyeing a place in the South African team for the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon, was using the shorter race to build up speed for preferred 5000m.

Caster Semenya was the star attraction of the second edition of the Athletics South Africa Grand Prix in Cape Town on Wednesday (March 23) and the two-time Olympic champion didn't disappoint, racing to her fastest ever women's 3000m.

Running in only her second major event this season, the double women's 800m gold medalist took charge of the race with two laps to go and held on to cross the finish line in a personal best of 8:54.97.

Semenya, who was using the race to build up speed for her now preferred event the 5000m, trailed early leader Kyla Jacobs before making the decisive move and dip below nine minutes for the first time over the shorter distance.

“The run was a little bit tricky,” Semenya said in an interview with World Track.

“Fortunately before the start, the wind died down a bit and worked in our favor. It was a great race, happy with the result. The target obviously was to break nine minutes and we achieved the goal [so] now we’ll have to go back to the drawing board and work more on mileage.”

The leaner looking Semenya finished comfortably ahead of her closest challenger Aynslee Van Graan who timed 9:09.63 while her compatriot and training partner Glenrose Xaba finished in third place in 9:12.51.

The triple 800m world champion’s previous personal best over the 3000m was 9:04:20 from Potchefstroom in May 2021 when she was chasing qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021.

She missed out on her target of 15:10.00 which meant she didn't qualify for the Olympics after finishing in fourth place in a 5000m meet in Belgium in 15:50.12 in June 2021.

The South African 5000m national champion, who raced to her personal best of 15:32.15 in May 2021 opened her season with a 5000m of 15:36.55 on March 12 at the Gauteng North Championships in Pretoria.

She is eyeing qualification for the World Athletics Championships in Oregon. The qualification mark for the worlds set for July 15 to 24 for the women’s 5000m is 15:10.00.

posted Thursday March 24th
by Evelyn Watta