PIC: Caster Semenya shares first glimpse of baby number two

Olympic Gold medal winner Caster Semenya and her wife Violet are the proud parents to a new little bundle of joy.

The middle-distance runner took to social media to share a rare photo of her and her wife’s second child on Sunday.

The athlete shared a black and white photo of her new baby’s tiny feet resting on a hand, with her and Violet’s wedding rings hanging around each of their baby’s big toes. The picture was simply captioned “Joy” with a black heart emoji.

Caster and Violet, who also have a two-year-old daughter, Oratile, have never shown their daughter’s face on social media. They are always very conscious of ensuring that her face is turned away from the camera, or has an emoji placed over it when she is looking at the camera.

The couple announced their second pregnancy in July 2021 with a photograph of Violet wearing a bright traditional skirt and crop top with her baby bump on display, Caster was dressed in black jeans and a black and grey shirt. The mothers both held a white Babygro and their 2-year-old’s back was faced to the camera as she reached for the small piece of baby clothing.

“Ten little fingers, ten little toes. With love and grace, our family grows. This precious soul that God decided to bless us with. We all can’t wait to meet YOU,” Semenya captioned the post.

If our math is correct, Semenya and Violet’s new baby should already be around two or three months old.

The couples oldest, Oratile, will be celebrating her third birthday on 5 July, so we can only hope that the new parents will share some more details and photos of their precious second baby.

Semenya who raced at the African Athletics Championships in Mauritius earlier this month will not be representing South Africa at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon from 15 July – 24 July.

The athlete finished in sixth position at the Championships in Mauritius in a time of 16:03, way off the World Championships’ qualifying mark of 15:1.

Speaking to BBC Sport Africa on Sunday, Semenya,  who is barred from competing in her preferred 800m race by World Athletics’ differences of sexual development (DSD) rules introduced in 2019, said the World Championships this year wasn’t really a target for her.

She said she has a four-year plan to move to road running, and that she will not compare herself with people who have been running the 5,000m for over a decade.

 “It takes four years for a distance runner to be great. I’m trying to figure it out. It’s like a baby trying to learn how to walk,” she told the BBC.