Prudence Sekgodiso cruises to 800m win at ASA Grand Prix

Prudence Sekgodiso cruised to an 800m win at the Athletics South Africa Grand Prix's first meeting of the year at the Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria on Wednesday.

The Paris Olympics finalist won the race in an impressive unofficial time of 1:59.01, beating strong competition from Oratile Nowe (1:59.46), with Charne Swart completing the top three positions with a time of 2:01.57.

The 23-year-old took to the track in her much-fancied 800m event that has seen her launch her season in fine style with an impressive time of 1:59:88 at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany, in February.

The 2022 African Championships bronze medalist has shown a lot of promise in an event that has previously been dominated by Caster Semenya in years gone by, and with the world at her feet, she has shown enough signs that the shoes may just not be big enough to fill.

Sekgodiso has a personal outdoor best time (PB) of 1:57:26 in this event and Semenya’s personal best time of 1:54:25, with Czech Republic's Jarmila Kratochvilová's world record time of 1:53.28, are still far off the 23-year-old's reach, but there is little doubt that she is a work in progress that is still yet to reach its peak.

Two laps awaited with tough competition from former national record holder Gena Lofstrand (PB 2:01.50) and Charne Swart, who has previously threatened the sub-two-minute time with a best time of 2:00.34.

Botswana international Nowe was always going to be Sekgodiso’s biggest challenger on the day and off the blocks, she made her intentions clear as she set the early pace, with South African comfortably following closely.

The qualifying time for the world championships in Tokyo later this year in September is 1:59.00 for this event and needing to book their spot there, every athlete pushed hard to get within the leading group.

The race was always going to be broken open in the final 400m and as predicted, Swart was following closely but the leading pair of Nowe and Sekgodiso began to cut loose from the rest of the field.

The South African took charge with 250m to go, reaching home in an unofficial time of 1:59.01 to continue her fine form in 2025 ahead of what will be an important season for her, beginning with the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, later this month.

Speaking after the race, Sekgodiso could not hold her excitement.

“I enjoyed the race; it was nice; it was part of my training as I am preparing for the World Indoors (championships). I am glad I ran a sub-two minutes as well.

“It means a lot to me, and it just shows that we are bringing back that medal.”