Athletics South Africa – News – FIRST REAL TEST FOR SEMENYA

The Samsung Diamond League in Eugene, Oregon is the next stop for the prestigious 12 event series and is the first big test faced by South Africa's World 800m Champion, Caster Semenya. The list of entries is a who's who of women's 800m running.

Janeth Jepkosgei  – World 800m Champion 2007; Olympic Silver Medalist 2008 and World Championship Silver Medalist (behind Caster Semenya) in 2009.

Pamela Jelimo – 2008 Olympic Champion. The there is Kenia Sinclair, the World indoor Silver Medalist of 2006, to name but a few. The slowest in field is the USA's Erica Moore who has run a best of 2.01;12 and Geena Gall with her 2.00;44. The rest of the field has all gone under 2 minutes with Jemilo's 1.54;01 the pick of the crop. Caster will need to keep an eye out on the big guns, but cannot exclude the likes of Maggie Vessey and Phoebe Wright, both of the USA. Along with Sinclair, these two are the only athletes in the field to have gone under 2minutes this year. Semenya's 2.00;61 best of 2011 currently leaves her on 18^th on the World Ranking list with Sinclair lying second, Vessey 8^th, Wright 11^th and Russia's Yuliya Rusanova 16^th. As defending World Champion, Semenya is an automatic selection to the World Championships according to IAAF rules, however, she will need to run close to her best if she intends to retain her title.

Also lining up for South Africa are Sunette Viljoen, Khotso Mokoena and Oscar Pistorius. Viljoen is up against a quality field, where only one athlete has yet to break 60m this year, that being Rachel Yurkovich. The rest have all gone further. Heading that list is Mariya Abakumova, the Olympic Silver and World Championship Bronze Medalist whose 65.81m is the second best throw of the season so far. Barbora Špotáková is ranked third, but the Czech athlete is not the 2007 World Champion and 2008 Olympic Champion for nothing.

She has the ability to unleash the big throw when it matters. And Christina Obergfoll has also  already gone over 64m this year. Viljoen however has been improving with each meeting and in her last meeting (Golden Spike, Ostrava 31 May), she qualified for the World Championships. With that in the bag, the pressure is off her to pull out a big one, and the chances of the big one coming have now remarkably increased.

Khotso Mokoena opens his international season in Eugene against the Olympic Champion Irving Saladino. The two have met 17 times, with the Panamanian coming up trumps on 13 of these occasions, the last being the Olympic Final where Saladino won the Gold and Mokoena the Silver. Interesting to note though, is that Mokoena, seems to be on the ascendency – he has beaten Saladino in their last three outings.

Oscar Pistorius will attempt to run the 45.25sec needed to qualify for the World Championships 400m. He couldn't have picked a better race in which to attempt this, as Jeremy Wariner will be lining up as well. The 3 time Olympic and 5 time World Championship Gold Medalist is the only athlete to break 45seconds in that field, but he will be out for a quick time and could provide the impetus for Pistorius to run a fast time.