PREMIUM!
Caster and Violet tie the knot!
The Olympic champion has wedded her longtime sweetheart in Pretoria.
Caster Semenya’s Instagram.
Caster Semenya married long-time partner Violet Raseboya during a beautiful white wedding on Saturday at Chez Charlene Wedding Venue in Pretoria.
The Olympic golden girl took to Instagram to share photos of the special moment and captioned one “Our perfect day”. Semenya, who celebrated her 26th birthday on the day, posted a pic of the newlyweds on social media, with 30-year-old Raseboya wearing a white dress and the middle-distance star in a smart suit.
Congratulations flooded her timeline.
They had previously celebrated a traditional wedding in Limpopo, in December 2015, but made matters official at the white wedding held in Lynnwood.
Semenya brushed off an ongoing gender controversy last year to win Olympic 800m gold in Rio, breaking her own national record to become the first black South African woman to earn a title in any code at the multi-sport Games.
Having discovered the best form of her career, the former world champion was expected to hear later this year whether the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) would lift its suspension of the International Association of Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) hyperandrogenism ruling, which forced women with the condition to restrict their natural testosterone levels.
Semenya’s return to form, after she had struggled in recent years, was attributed to a new training environment in Potchefstroom under coach Jean Verster and her recovery from injury, but there was wide speculation that CAS’s decision to suspend the rule had also played a key role in her performances.
She went unbeaten in her specialist two-lap event in the 2016 season as she edged closer towards the world record, and, provided she was not affected by rule changes or injuries, Semenya was likely to line up as favourite to reclaim the world title in the 2017 campaign.
Raseboya, also a former elite athlete at domestic level, represented South Africa at the 2007 World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, though she was no longer competitive as a top-flight distance runner.
South Africa was the first African country to legalise same-sex marriage, with the law having been passed in November 2006.
