Semenya targets Paris glory in June

Cape Town - Caster Semenya will head the 800m track event at the Meeting de Paris, the seventh stop of the IAAF Diamond League, on June 30.

According to the IAAF website, Semenya has only made the billing here once before, in 2011, the year she secured her second world title.

She carried the day, dominating proceedings with a time of 2:00.18.

Now a triple world champion and double gold medallist at the Olympics, Semenya will be competing on the Charléty track with the same goal she has every time she races: victory.

Sitting atop the 2018 world lists with a 1:56.68 from the semi-finals of the Commonwealth Games, Semenya has remained undefeated over the distance since her elimination in the semi-finals of the 2015 Worlds in Beijing.

At 27, she's set herself a fabulous challenge this season: to win the IAAF Diamond League over two distances, the 800m and the 1 500m.

She kicked off her campaign with victory over the longer distance with a 3:59.92 national record in Doha earlier this month.

In Paris, she'll be keen to improve her world lead but she's first have to erase her personal best time - 1:55.16 from last year's World Championships in London - to challenge the meeting record of 1:54.97 set by Kenyan Pamela Jelimo in 2008.

2018 IAAF Diamond League calendar:

4 May – Doha, QAT

12 May – Shanghai, CHN

26 May – Eugene, USA

31 May – Rome, ITA

7 Jun – Oslo, NOR

10 Jun – Stockholm, SWE

30 Jun – Paris, FRA

5 Jul – Lausanne, SUI

13 Jul – Rabat, MAR

20 Jul – Monaco, MON

21-22 Jul – London, GBR

18 Aug – Birmingham, GBR

30 Aug – Zurich, SUI

31 Aug – Brussels, BEL