Semenya’s victory will not please everyone.
Advertisement
In an interview with the BBC previous year, Semenya said she enjoys watching rugby, golf and Formula 1.
The athlete handed her gold medal to her wife Violet Raseboya after arriving at the Johannesburg Airport following the row over her involvement in the Olympics. “And she must keep running!”
She has since been diagnosed with hyperandrogenism, which means her testosterone levels are far in excess of the vast majority of women.
She was born with an “intersex condition, meaning she has ambiguous reproductive and sexual anatomy”, reports the Daily Signal.
Semenya’s breakthrough world title seven years ago moved the IAAF to introduce rules limiting testosterone in female athletes.
Others pointed out that Semenya has still had to put in great effort to become a world-class athlete.
None of this has ever been confirmed, noted The New York Times.
South Africa’s social media has been united in furious defence of Ms. Semenya. Beitia looked the most relaxed on the field as she smiled and waved her spirit fingers before each jump.
Semenya returned to South Africa from the Rio Games on Wednesday (NZ time) and received a hero’s welcome at Johannesburg’s worldwide airport. It doesn’t upset me.
“God made me the way I am”, Semenya once said.
Though there were errors aplenty on the part of our Olympic selectors, which potentially cost the country several medals, Team South Africa have done us proud with a glittering Olympic haul of 10 medals, two of them gold.
But previous year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport suspended the IAAF’s ruling, stipulating that it “was unable to conclude that hyperandrogenic female athletes may benefit from such a significant performance advantage that it is necessary to exclude them from competing in the female category”. That left Semenya free to compete. In the gold medal race, she set the pace early, stride at ease.
Semenya has dominated the 800m this season and there has even been speculation that she could take down Czech Jarmila Kratochvilova’s 1983 mark of 1:53.28 seconds – the longest standing athletics world record set in an era when eastern European doping was rife.
What many people are unwittingly saying is that if a woman wins, she must be a man, or that a clear, solid line between genders actually exists. “I commend her for her resilience, and for remaining focused on attaining her goal of an Olympic gold medal, under very stressful circumstances”, he said.
Advertisement
Sharp, who advanced in 1:58.65, was disappointed to miss out on the London 2012 final, but will only be satisfied if she reaches the podium in Rio.
