All eyes were on Caster Semenya when the South African lined up for the start of her 800m final on Wednesday, but for all the wrong reasons.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said on Wednesday, hours before Semenya was due to run, that the procedure for a gender test had started following her rapid performance improvement in the past year.
Let’s get one thing clear at the outset: this case has nothing to do with cheating or any attempt to gain unfair advantage.
If an athlete, as has been the case several times in the past, disguises himself or herself as a member of the opposite sex to gain an unfair advantage, then they should be exposed, banned and accept any consequences of their attempts to cheat.
But this case is nothing of the sort and the IAAF would be better to leave well alone.
What would happen anyway if a gender verification test — click here for an excellent overview of the way testing is done – were to prove, after weeks of examinations, that an athlete was not really female, medically speaking?
What would the IAAF do? Take her medal away and risk the legal wrangles, the years of public disputes that would follow?
The IAAF itself has said that Semenya has done nothing wrong, that “we are not talking about cheating”. So why bother with the test?
And again, what would they do? Send her off to run with the men? Obviously her times are not quick enough to be compared to men. She won with a time of 1:55.45 minutes. The men’s world record is a massive 13 seconds faster in the two-lap event. Even the women’s world record is a huge two seconds-plus faster and it has been standing for 26 years, set by Czechoslovakia’s Jarmila Kratochvilova.
According to her mother, grandmother, headmaster and friends Semenya was raised as a girl, lives like a woman and competes like one.
So why not do these tests quietly, as IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss so correctly said when he took her place in the winner’s press conference to protect her from the media, and shut this and any similar cases quietly and discreetly, accepting that in life as in sport not everything is as simple as black or white, right or wrong, or even male or female.
PHOTO: Caster Semenya celebrates victory in the women’s 800 metres final during the world athletics championships at the Olympic stadium in Berlin, August 19, 2009. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
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coach wiki…
Today Wednesday I found your article The LinkedIn Blog ” Blog Archive How you can help your kid …. Just curious: on what bases do you conclude your findings?…
- Posted by coach wikiClearly, she has as much right to claim her female identity as anyone else on that field. Whether or not she wears dresses or has big tits shouldn’t come into play, and they definitely should have left it alone. It’s an injustice and an ugly one to be done to a young, teenage girl and her dreams.
Please read my article on Semenya: Proving It.
http://www.sheword.com/news/proving-it/
Nikita
- Posted by NikitaThe way Caster Semenya has been disrespected throughout this entire process is unfathomable. I have written about my thoughts on AAUW’s blog: http://blog-aauw.org/2009/09/17/caster-s emenya%E2%80%99s-fight-for-human-decency /
- Posted by ZabieCaster my dear, you’re a beautiful woman. So lets shut them all up… Send the IAAF a bloodied pad!!!
- Posted by Happy_Go_LuckyI honestly think that this is being handled very poorly and is blatantly unfair to Caster Semenya. I don’t have all of the knowledge of the sport. I am just a human being who feels strongly in justice and fairplay.
Above all, Caster Semenya is a human being with feelings, hopes and dreams. To be treated this way, like cattle, an animal, is unacceptable and wrong. Lets not forget that the stigma of this entire proceeding will follow Semenya forever, regardless of the outcome.
Caster Semenya I feel for you, I am an old man living in a small town in Tennessee, USA and my heart goes out to you. Know that someone cares, and prays for you.
- Posted by David VanStoryWe like it or not to take part in a woman athletics competitions only women (100% women)are allowed. Otherwise it is unfair. Gender test is to screen out those cases when a person try to sneak in or just have a genetic disorder which makes the person gender questionable. Woman has XX chromosome man has XY. This is clear, but sometime a person can have XXY so called Klinefelter’s syndrome. These individuals are combining both gender in their body and sometime this comes up on events where a very male look like person competes in the woman league.
Caster Semenya is one of the athletes on the field today who was wrongly accused with this disorder. Wrongly, not because of her race or origin, but the way as it was carried out was wrong.
Actually the ASA is to blame for its incompetent conduct. They should run this test behind the scene already years ago and they’d submit it to the IAAF when or before questions started. When it became clear it is their fault they tried to make some pathetic accuses by the race issue. In SA sometime this works. Their poor conduct made Caster in this situation
- Posted by Gabor BarlaGabor
Respectfully her/his hormone levels are way out of the normal- couple this to the stigma of an East German coach and the die is cast. Complain as much as you like about the criticism, the world will rule her to have an unfair advantage.
- Posted by lillyDid you know that the best time within the last 2 years is by a Kenyan. She recorded the third best time of all time.
- Posted by Lenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Jeli mo
@Frank
- Posted by ThembalabantubonkeThe IAAF did not receive a formal complaint. Please state where you learned of such. IAAF received correspondence from a South African media group (suspected of being the Media 24 group). They communicated their suspicions to the IAAF. No athletes or association complained.
If her gender gives her an advantage of other females, then surely her sudden improvement is immaterial as she would have run as whatever gender the IAAF claims she is even when she was recording slow times.
- Posted by ThembalabantubonkeThe 800 metres is more of a tactical race and therefore one needs only run a time sufficient to win a race (in most cases). She came from a rural environment with basic facilities to a world class facility. She moved from an environment where she ran once in a while and played soccer in other times and fooled around with her piers at other times, to focus entirely on running.
If therefore her improvements are too extra-ordinary to believe, drug testing would most likely be applicable instead of gender testing.
Furthermore, according to the IAAF’s own rules http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported /36983.pdf, there is nothing they can do even if they find Caster to have an unfair advantage since transgender athletes are allowed to race in the gender of the gender they have known to be their gender since puberty.