RIO DE JANEIRO Caster Semenya of South Africa took the gold medal in the Olympic 800 meters on Saturday in a personal best time of 1:55.28 seconds.
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Semenya, who appeared barely out of breath at the finish, popped a South African flag onto her shoulder and took a leisurely jog around the stadium to celebrate.
Her coach, Jean Verster puts her return to 2009 form down to simple lifestyle factors; a sort of older, happier Semenya.
Briton Lynsey Sharp who was placed sixth in that race argued that the decision to overturn rules on testosterone suppression made competing against the women’s Olympic 800m champion, Semenya, and other hyperandrogenic athletes hard.
“I needed to get my legs stronger so that I could be a better athlete, so here I am and all I want to do is be the best athlete that I can be”. However, many including Sebastian Coe insist that Semenya should only compete if she takes hormone-suppressing drugs.
Some people are asking whether Caster Semenya had an unfair advantage.
Michael Phelps was born with large feet, a long torso and short legs that made his body ideal for swimming. African runners are born and train in areas at high altitude.
Team SA will now have four more years to prepare for the next Olympic Games in Tokyo. The tests – likely to verify Semenya’s sex and also to measure her testosterone levels – led to her being declared ineligible to compete for 11 months.
Attention then turned to the men’s 5 000m.
The following year, the IAAF introduced new testosterone regulations for women, which the Athletics Federation of India challenged on behalf of one of its athletes, Dutee Chand, in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in July last year.
A year ago 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.
Now, apparently, the global body that oversees sport has decided that testosterone doesn’t “necessarily give female athletes an advantage”.
Choosing her words carefully in an interview with the BBC, Sharp responded to a question over whether the race had effectively been a two-tier event – with other hyperandrogenic athletes believed to have competed – by stating: “I’ve tried to avoid the issue all year, [but] you can see how emotional it was between me and Melissa and Joanna at the end”.
“This is a very sensitive issue”. Geneticists and medical ethicists have varying opinions. Many people said it was discriminatory for athletics organizations to try to penalize Ms. Semenya for a natural condition. She looked one proud woman. In the 21st century, gender identity is at the fore of evolving thought on who we are.
Semenya deserves the same respect and should not be penalized and persecuted for the way she was born.
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“Caster was a popular choice from the beginning and we were in full support of our South African sensation, said Minister in the Presidency responsible for women Susan Shabangu”.
