Photo: Barry Aldworth/BackpagePix

South Africa's Caster Semenya qualify competes in the women's 800m heats held at the Olympic Stadium in London.

Pretoria — South Africans are holding their breath ahead of Caster Semenya's 800 meter qualifying heat later today, where she is pegged to snatch a gold medal.

The country is hoping that the middle-distance runner and world champion will beat Rose Mary Almanza of Cuba, Halima Hachlaf of Morocco, Annabelle Lascar of Mauritius, Elena Popescu of Moldova, Noura Elsayed of Egypt, and the American Alysia Johnson Montano to add more medals to its tally.

South African has earned three gold medals and one silver at the Olympics.

Another potential medal-winner to watch out for is Sunette Viljoen, who won a bronze medal at the World Championships in 2011. On Tuesday she qualified in third place for tonight's javelin finals, with a throw of 65.92 meters.

However, it won't be a walk in the park for Viljoen as she will be competing with the 2008 Beijing gold medallist, Barbora Spotakova of Czechoslovakia and 2008 Beijing Bronze medallist, Christina Obergfoll of Germany.

Bridgette Hartley is also expected to get a medal for Team SA in the canoe sprint after she qualified first in her semi-final on Tuesday with a time of 1:51.286.

Anaso Jobodwana will line-up with the world and Olympics champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica in the 200 meter semi-final later in the evening.