Semenya, who is widely tipped to win gold on Sunday and possibly even break Jarmila Kratochvilova’s 33-year-old world record, won her heat in a time of 1 minute 59.31 seconds.

Team South Africa may be looking at another medal, with the javelin queen, Sunette Viljoen, competing in the final of the event tomorrow morning.

Elroy Gelant in his turn qualified for the 5000m final. Running in the second heat of the day, Gelant finished seventh in a time of 13:22.00. 

And our women golfers, Ashleigh Simon and Paula Reto, teed off their campaign yesterday as the first ever women’s golf tournament at the Olympic games got underway.

It wasn’t the greatest of starts for our golfers at the exceptionally difficult Rio course, Ashleigh Simon speaks of what it was like teeing up at the Games for the first time.

Remember, Caster Semenya will be running in the women’s 800m semi-finals tomorrow morning at 2:31am and Viljoen will be in action in the women’s javelin from 2:10.

Morgan Piek/OFM News