Caster Semenya broke South Africa’s oldest track record at the Liquid Telkom Athletix Grand Prix at the Tuks Stadium in Pretoria on Thursday night.

The Rio Olympic gold medallist and reigning world 800m champion won the seldom-run 1,000m race in 2min 35.44sec to beat the old mark of 2:37.2 by two seconds.

Co-incidentally the old 1983 record was set in Bloemfontein by Ilze Wicksell, now 58 years old, and a sports manager at the High Performance Centre (HPC) in the same city.

Visiting Ugandan athletes Halimah Nakaayi and Winnie Nanyondo were second and third in 2:37.55 and 2:37.98 respectively as Olympic 400m hurdler Wenda Nel performed early pacemaking duties.

Semenya told SABC afterwards: ‘It was a tough race. The pacemaker went too quickly so I was a little disappointed.

‘The main job of a pacemaker is to guide me, not kill me. But at the end of the day, I got a new national record so I couldn’t ask for more. It’s fantastic.’

Semenya’s fine form means she’s nicely set up for a great performance at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games which will be staged in Australia next month between 4-15 April.

Meanwhile, Anaso Jobodwana beat world 100m champion Justin Gatlin in a 150m race at the Athletix Grand Prix.

The South African won in 15.08sec, with Roscoe Engel second (15.17), Luxolo Adams third (15.18) and Gatlin – who only arrived in South Africa on Tuesday night – fourth (15.23).

Photo: Reg Caldecott