Word: semenya
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Nine days after she won the women's 800-m world championship as an all but unknown in Berlin, Caster Semenya returned home to the plains of Limpopo, the northernmost province of South Africa, to escape the uproar that had enveloped her since she'd crossed the finish line. Semenya, 18, finds herself as not only one of the world's best athletes but also among its most controversial, under investigation by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) not for cheating or doping but for allegedly not being female. "Coach used to tell me there are many ways...
...Berlin, Semenya looked as if she ran a different race than the rest of the field did, finishing 2.45 sec. - a bus length - ahead of her nearest rival. But it wasn't just her performance that set her apart. While the other runners sported ponytails and nail polish, Semenya was conspicuously masculine. After the final, the general secretary of the IAAF, Pierre Weiss, explained that inquiries into Semenya's gender would involve a gynecologist, a psychologist and specialists in hormones and internal medicine. If they concluded Semenya was male, Weiss said, "we will withdraw her name from the results." Said...
...Athletes with AIS and similar intersex conditions are often allowed to compete in international athletics. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, seven genetically male athletes with AIS were allowed to compete as women. On Friday, the IAAF emphasized that Semenya's gender verification tests were a medical issue, not a doping one, and there were no insinuations that the athlete - whose family in South Africa insist she is female - cheated...
...IAAF spokesman Davies told the Associated Press on Friday that, whatever the test reveals, Semenya would probably keep her world championship medal. "Our legal advice is that if she proves to have an advantage because of the male hormones, then it will be extremely difficult to strip the medal off her, since she has not cheated," he said. "She was naturally made that way, and she was entered in Berlin by her team and accepted by the IAAF." (See pictures of South Africa...
...report in the Daily Telegraph and South Africa's response only serve to keep in the public sphere that which is a very private matter. Semenya, at least, seems to be displaying the same gritty fortitude that propelled her to victory in Berlin. When asked by South African magazine You about the gender issue, she reportedly said: "I see it all as a joke, it doesn't upset me. God made me the way I am and I accept myself. I am who I am and I'm proud of myself. I don't want to talk about the tests...