Cape Town – The government on Sunday congratulated Caster Semenya for breezing through the women’s 800m final and securing an Olympic gold medal.
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Caster Semenya was the strong favourite heading into Saturday’s women’s 800m final at the 2016 Olympic Games – and the South African didn’t disappoint.
Under IAAF rules requiring her to take hormone-supressing drugs, Semenya won the silver medal in her race in the London Olympics four years ago.
In her style, Semenya sat back behind leader Niyonsaba until the final 150 meters, then unleashed a powerful burst from out of the curve to pull away down the straightaway, leaving her competitors trailing and fighting for silver.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – It was predicted. That didn’t make it any less impressive, or any less contentious.
This was the women’s 800 metres, won handily Saturday night by South Africa’s Caster Semenya, with silver and bronze respectively going to Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Margaret Wambui of Kenya.
“It’s out of my control, there’s nothing I can do about it”, said Great Britain’s Lynsey Sharp, who came sixth.
Radcliffe said Semenya was “not cheating” but something needed to be done to ensure she did not benefit from her elevated testosterone levels. It’s not about looking at people, you know, how they look, how they speak, how they run. It’s not about being muscular.
However, the Scottish runner still managed to set a personal best of 1:57.69 and managed to see the positives from her own performance.
“My coach just told me to be patient and wait for the right moment”. So I think the advice is to be for everybody just to go out there and have fun.
“We’re just racing bodies out there”, Grace said moments after the race in comments that, for emphasis, were not meant to be and should not be read as critical.
What sort of advantage do naturally occurring high levels of testosterone (it’s called “endogenous” testosterone, versus the “exogenous” kind, or from outside the body, seen in athletes who dope) give a non-doping female athlete?
However, this ruling was reversed previous year when Indian sprinter Dutee Chand successfully appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which suspended the practice of testosterone regulation and challenged the IAAF to present better evidence by July 2017. It meant Semenya could run again if she took medicine to suppress her testosterone levels.
Past year the CAS arbitrators released a detailed 162-page decision that recognised not only the large volume of evidence presented by both sides but also the “complex legal, scientific, factual and ethical issues” at play.
Many believe it also left Semenya, an outstanding athlete anyway, with an unbeatable advantage. Semenya, who was the subject of much intrigue in the lead-up to the Olympic Games, let her feet do most of the talking, as she cantered to a dominant victory in the 800m. You work on what you know you can do best.
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However, the 25-year-old’s success predictably refuelled the controversy surrounding the eligibility of female athletes, like Semenya, with hyperandrogenism – a condition that results in increased testosterone levels. Others refused to talk about the testosterone issue. She draws attention to the embraces she shared with Canada’s Melissa Bishop and Poland’s Joanna Jozwik at the finish as demonstrations of solidarity.
