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 Semenyas personal best time of 1:54:25, with Czech Republic's Jarmila Kratochvilov'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.