South Africa's world 800 metres champion Caster Semenya won her comeback race on Thursday after an enforced break of almost a year following controversial gender tests. Semenya won in two minutes 4.22 seconds in the south-eastern Finnish town of Lappeenranta in her first competitive outing since taking gold in 1:55.45 at the Berlin world championships last August.
"It is not easy to come and run 2:04 while you stayed for 11 months at home, so yeah, I am pretty happy with the performance," Semenya said in an interview with the Finnish broadcaster YLE. The 19-year-old is scheduled to compete in Lapinlahti, central Finland, on Sunday before returning to South Africa to build up her fitness. "The more we race the better we will get," Semenya said when asked what she needed to do to reach a good fitness level. Her coach has targeted the Commonwealth Games in October for Semenya and Athletics South Africa spokesman Richard Stander was confident she would be competing in New Delhi.
Semenya was cleared to compete as a woman by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) on July 6 and because of her lack of race fitness ASA opted not to include her in the teams for this month's world junior championships and the African championships.
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