It was after her 2009 victories that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said it was obliged to investigate her eligibility and asked her to undergo gender testing.
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Though the decision was in relation to a young Indian woman named Dutee Chand – she too competed in Rio, but ran only one heat of the 100 metres with a time that was 50th best out of a field of 64 – it also applied to Semenya.
Semenya could feel spectators’ probing eyes on her as she shook hands with her opponents and pulled a fallen runner to her feet. Only sufficient details as to be mortifying and shaming appear to ever leak out in the public domain.
Sharp finished 6th in the 800-meter race.
Mokgadi Caster Semenya was born in 1991 in Ga-Mashelong, a village near Polokwane, Limpopo.
In July 2010, Semenya was cleared to compete but she was ordered to take medication to lower her natural testosterone levels.
However, this ruling was reversed a year ago 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.
But racial overtones are at play here, too.
But after the Saturday race, Sharp tearfully admitted it had been “difficult” competing against such athletes.
Upset after her failure to secure her country a medal, she told BBC Sport after the race that she felt emotional about the situation: “I have tried to avoid the issue all year”. The message to people out there is to have fun and see what you can achieve.
It is out of our control and how much we rely on people at the top sorting it out.
Sharp, Bishop and Jozwik all hugged together after the race in what Sharp said was a show of unity.
“I hope that in four year’s time there will be more people to fill the entire airport”, she said referring to the next Olympic games in Tokyo in 2020. We’ve always heard that Phelps arms are really long, making him the flawless swimmer, and we know Bolt’s extraordinarily long stride, making him the ideal sprinter.
Social media has been awash in her defense and South Africans started #HandsOffCaster, one of the most popular hashtags since her Olympics victory.
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These athletes have a genetic condition where the testosterone receptor has a mutation which means they are unable to obtain any benefit from it (or from injected testosterone). Semenya, whose body has been subjected to brutal and unprecedented scrutiny for years, was a full two seconds short of breaking Jarmila Kratochvilova’s 33-year-old world record, but still posted the fastest two-lap time this year of one minute 55.28 seconds.
