The following article appeared in The Cape Argus....
It is to do with SA's latest champion athlete, and how she has been treated.
I can't understand how a part of the crowd at the world champs could boo her... what has she done? Been too good for a woman? Why was she guilty before being proved innocent?
The article
Caster Semenya might have become a global overnight sensation, but to South African athletics followers she has steadily been rising up the world rankings.
Rumours and snide comments about her gender have been doing the rounds for nearly a year, yet when she annihilated the opposition to become 800m world champion in Berlin it caught many off guard.
Athletics SA (ASA), the governing body of the sport in this country, have to take it on the chin for allowing the scandal to escalate. Gender tests might be complicated and take weeks to provide a definitive result based on DNA, but that’s exactly what they are – definitive.
Why ASA didn’t clear (or expose) the 18-year-old teenager before the IAAF World Championships is unforgiveable, given the way she has been publicly humiliated.
Three weeks ago, Semenya clocked a South African record 1min 56.72sec at the African Junior Championships in Mauritius.
That time alone made her the fastest woman over two laps this year, and by extension it made her the gold medal favourite on the biggest stage.
She should have been gender tested there and then, to silence the doubters who consider her features too “manly” to be that of a woman.
Instead, ASA arrived in Berlin and when confronted on the issue, the silence was deafening.
Initially, they allowed Semenya’s coach, Michael Seme, to face reporters: “I can give you the telephone numbers of her room-mates in Berlin. They have already seen her naked in the showers and she has nothing to hide,” he said.
That in itself shows Seme has little understanding of what a gender test involves, though he is an athletics coach, not a doctor. The blame must be squarely laid at the door of ASA, in not going to the World Championships prepared for the obvious storm that was about to break.
However, given that the body who allowed the fastest man in the country, Simon Magakwe, to arrive at the Nationals in Stellenbosch earlier this year with his borrowed kit in a Shoprite Checkers (Tescos) bag, perhaps we shouldn’t expect too much from them.
Even if gender tests prove that Semenya is eligible to compete in women’s races, there will be mental scarring.
There will also be a stigma, and because of the manner in which her gender wasn’t proved before the World Championships, there will be the cynics and critics.
The lesser charge levelled at ASA would be one of naivety.
After all, Semenya races in the colours of the University of Pretoria and attends the High Performance Centre.
As one high-ranking official told me during the week: “I would be very surprised if she is not a woman, and I would be disappointed and angry if the University hadn’t been completely satisfied that she’s eligible to race as a woman.”
All of which took some of the gloss off Semenya’s crowning glory, victory in the 800m final in a commanding 1:55.45.
The performance itself was staggering and it must be remembered it came in the third of her races at the World Championships, and twice she went under two minutes – and she won all her races.
But given all the rumours and grapevine gossip, it was obvious that the majority of people in the Berlin stadium felt that she was cheating the system. On her victory lap Semenya was booed by a section of the crowd, but the biggest injustice of the night was by the British TV commentators (and camera crew) providing the international feed.
As Semenya crossed the line with daylight to spare, the Brits were besides themselves. “(Jennifer) Meadows is going to be third, she’s going to win the bronze!” they screamed.
“As they get to the line it’s .... YESSSS ... Meadows has won bronze. What a fantastic performance by the British athlete.”
Whatever they might have thought about Semenya’s eligibility, the professional part in them should have been to applaud the South African. But they virtually ignored her performance, as if she wasn’t in the race.
Well, perhaps she wasn’t, for the teenager was in a race, and a class, all of her own.
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