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Double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes is convinced Caster Semenya will hit the ground running when she makes her long-awaited comeback to athletics on Thursday.

Semenya is the world 800m champion but has not raced competitively for 11 months, such was the furore surrounding her controversial gender tests.

The 19-year-old athlete exploded onto the scene last year, shattering Zola Budd’s long-standing national record a month before the World Championships, where she blitzed to gold in Berlin.

But her rapid rise from obscurity, coupled with her deep voice and masculine features, prompted an investigation into her gender by world governing body the IAAF.

Those results finally confirmed last week that Semenya is free to return to action and she will compete for the first time since her Berlin victory in a low-key meeting in Lappeenranta, Finland on Thursday.

Semenya has continued to train despite her absence from competition, but she failed a fitness test just days after being clear to return, arranged to check her readiness to compete at the African Championships later this month.

But Holmes, who won 800m and 1500m gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, believes it will not take Semenya long to stamp her authority on her competitors – and tipped the South African to shine at the World Junior Championships later this month.     

“At the end of the day if everything is fine for her to compete then why can’t an athlete do what she does best?” said Holmes.

“I am sure she is very eager to get out there, back on the track and just focus on running again.

“I go to South Africa many times and one of my very good friends is a coach who sees her training all of the time so believe me when I say that the time away from the track hasn’t hampered her at all because she has still been training hard and she will still be as strong as ever I am sure.

“It was obviously a real shame what happened to her with everything that went on but she could compete at the World Juniors and that would be great.

“She has been allowed to run and I see no problem with her competing at the world juniors.

“She was in unbelievable form before all this happened and I am sure she will get back on the track and it will be as if she was never gone before she is a real talent.”

Meanwhile, Athletics South Africa have pledged to ensure Semenya receives all the help she needs in a bid to prepare her for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi this October.

"Semenya will work towards reaching peak condition in order to be a part of the action at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India in October,” read an ASA statement.

“We will assist her in obtaining race opportunities as part of her preparations for the international event."

ASA emerged from the Semenya saga far from smelling of roses after former president Leonard Cheune admitted to lying about gender tests carried out on the athlete prior to the World Championships.

More than the Games / Eurosport