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Caster, Luvo resume hunt for gems

As the IAAF Diamond League nears the halfway mark, Caster Semenya and Luvo Manyonga lead the charge in their respective events going into the series in Scandinavia.

Defending Diamond champion Semenya will line up in Oslo tomorrow, chasing another win to widen the gap at the top of the 800m standings after three races.

The Olympic champion has 16 points with Kenya's Margaret Wambui trailing her by two points.

Semenya has entered the Norway meeting with Pieter Conradie (400m) and LJ van Zyl (400m hurdles) the only other South Africans who have been invited.

On Saturday, Manyonga, Khotso Mokoena and Ruswahl Samaai will hit the sandpit in the long jump final in the Stockholm leg.

Manyonga - with a season best leap of 8.65m - and Samaai (8.49m) are the current world number one and two jumpers.

Manyonga's coach Neil Cornelius told Sowetan yesterday that "we have been working on a few things to get Luvo to get the perfect jump".

This, he said, included tuning up his charge's take-off, flight and landing.

"The distance is the product of the technique," said the coach.

Cornelius said apart from targeting gold at the IAAF World Championships in London during August, Manyonga will have a go at the Diamond title, and should he pull it off, he would emulate Mokoena's feat from 2014.

SA 110m hurdles record holder Antonio Alkana and Van Zyl are the other South Africans at the Stockholm meeting.

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