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Pretoria – South Africa’s 800m women’s world champion Caster Semenya has said that she does not “love athletics” nor is she “very excited” about participating again.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say that I love athletics,” she said at Tukkies where she did a fitness test on Wednesday.
Semenya said that soccer was her favourite sport.
“I love playing soccer. The main reason I participate in athletics is because I know I can run really fast and prefer individual sports above team sports.
In team sports it’s not always about who is the best. It happens too easily that one player is favoured above another.
“That is why I won’t easily play soccer again. In athletics it’s just you and the clock,” said Semenya.
For the fitness tests she had to twice do a 600m time test.
Her time in the first time test was 95 seconds and in the second one 97 seconds, which means that she should be able to do the 800m in 2 min and 8 secs.
It was expected that she would be able to complete the 600m in 92 secs.
“I realise that I will have to train harder so that I can run faster times,” said Semenya.
She had a tough training session the previous day.
Semenya’s coach, Michael Seme, said that it would be a mistake to expect Semenya to run fast from the word go.
“We did not know when Caster would be allowed to participate again and as a result did virtually no speed work over the past 11 months. I need three to four weeks to get her to run faster times,” said Seme.
“If Caster is picked to run in the African meeting in Nairobi, she will not be at her best yet. I think she will be able to run a time of 2:03.00 in Nairobi.
“My big goal is to ensure that Caster is sharp for the Commonwealth Games in India. I have no doubt that she will then run the 800m in less than two minutes again.”
Semenya said that her big goal was to defend her world title next year.
When asked whether she was nervous about participating internationally again, she replied: “No, I can’t afford to be nervous. You have to believe in your own ability when competing against the world’s best. If not, you’re wasting your time.”
Pretoria – South Africa’s 800m women’s world champion Caster Semenya has said that she does not “love athletics” nor is she “very excited” about participating again.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say that I love athletics,” she said at Tukkies where she did a fitness test on Wednesday.
Semenya said that soccer was her favourite sport.
“I love playing soccer. The main reason I participate in athletics is because I know I can run really fast and prefer individual sports above team sports.
In team sports it’s not always about who is the best. It happens too easily that one player is favoured above another.
“That is why I won’t easily play soccer again. In athletics it’s just you and the clock,” said Semenya.
For the fitness tests she had to twice do a 600m time test.
Her time in the first time test was 95 seconds and in the second one 97 seconds, which means that she should be able to do the 800m in 2 min and 8 secs.
It was expected that she would be able to complete the 600m in 92 secs.
“I realise that I will have to train harder so that I can run faster times,” said Semenya.
She had a tough training session the previous day.
Semenya’s coach, Michael Seme, said that it would be a mistake to expect Semenya to run fast from the word go.
“We did not know when Caster would be allowed to participate again and as a result did virtually no speed work over the past 11 months. I need three to four weeks to get her to run faster times,” said Seme.
“If Caster is picked to run in the African meeting in Nairobi, she will not be at her best yet. I think she will be able to run a time of 2:03.00 in Nairobi.
“My big goal is to ensure that Caster is sharp for the Commonwealth Games in India. I have no doubt that she will then run the 800m in less than two minutes again.”
Semenya said that her big goal was to defend her world title next year.
When asked whether she was nervous about participating internationally again, she replied: “No, I can’t afford to be nervous. You have to believe in your own ability when competing against the world’s best. If not, you’re wasting your time.”
