What Should We Expect From Caster Semenya And Her Move To 3000 & 5000 Meters

Caster Semenya went on record after her 800m win in Doha that she would not be artificially lowering her testosterone to be IAAF compliant in her events of 400m — 1500m. So fans were left wondering, What’s next?

Well, today we got an answer as the fields were announced for Prefontaine… and in a surprise, Semenya was included in the 3000m field. It’s an interesting event for her as she has historically not been great at it… in fact her times over 1000 meters are nothing to write home about. However, given that she has trained as a 400 meter/800 meter runner; that is to be expected. What we don’t know is how her body reacts to traditional distance training and mileage. If she’s going to do this thing she might as well dive right in.

First, let’s talk about what it would take for her to dominate on the 3000m/5000m level — and then we’ll talk about what we should realistically expect. The problem with the 3000/5000m is the events are a lot closer at the front end than Caster will be used to dealing with. For instance, according to IAAF tables — her 800m pr of 1:54.98 is worth an 8:18 3000m and 14:14 5000m. The leading times in those events in 2017 (the last WC year) were 8:23 and 14:18. So if she can replicate her 800m form she will still be the best; but the likelihood that a 400m/800m has…