Semenya has a go at 3000m
REIGNING 800m world champion Caster Semenya is spreading her wings on the track with the 3000m now added to her schedule.
Semenya will make her first appearance in the 3km event in the third leg of the 2011 Yellow Pages Series in Bellville, Cape Town on Thursday.
Sowetan has learnt that Semenya has been training hard at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria preparing for the series.
"Caster is planning to do some long-distance events in the next few days as part of her training programme," said coach Michael Seme yesterday.
"It will be a big strain running the 400m or 800m for now after she suffered a back problem recently. I don't think she can run that fast with it. With the 1500m and 3000m events it will be much better because she won't have to push. We have been working on the 3000m and Caster is ready to give it a try.
"We are not going to Cape Town on holiday but people must not expect earth-shattering times until Caster's back problem has completely healed," he said.
In the 3000m, Semenya will come up against South African champion Tebogo Masehla and popular Phalula twins Lebo and Lebogang.
Seme, who is also the coach of road, cross-country and track king Stephen Mokoka, said Semenya was more focused on successfully defending the world title she won two years ago.
Semenya made history by becoming the first black South African woman to win gold at the world championship in Germany. This was after banned Athletics South Africa president Leonard Chuene disregarded advice to withdraw Semenya from the world event because of complaints from "people in other countries" that she was a man disguised as a woman.
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