According to the AP, the South African Olympic committee is finally investigating the Caster Semenya case. Questions about the runner’s gender, and how SA officials handled a “developing situation” prior to the IAAF world championships in Berlin, have continued to emerge in the SA press. The hearings began last Friday and are sure to produce some fireworks of revelations and controversy.
The head of Athletics South Africa, Leonard Chuene, now says that, contrary to his own statements earlier, South Africa had already tested Semenya prior to Berlin. Chuene now admits that he lied, saying he didn’t know about the tests. It’s now alleged that, as a result of these tests, Chuene was asked not to run Semenya in Berlin. But he changed his mind, and sent her anyway. The question is, why did he decide to put his runner in such a potentially compromised situation? And what tests, exactly, were done? The SAOC aims to find out.
U.S. major media tend to give this story the tabloid treatment. For a more detailed, and science-based view of the case, Outsports can go to The Science of Sport. This is excellent website run by two South African sports figures. TSOS has kept a good running commentary on the case. Outsports readers can go there find for a good timeline and an updated view on the who-where-what-why of what happened, so far, and what questions remain to be answered.
on Oct 13th, 2009 at 3:18 PM
I don’t rememer the exact numbers but the area of South Africa, Limpopo, where she comes from has something like double the number of hermaphrodites as the rest of the country, which is already much higher than America.
on Oct 15th, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Actually, we still don’t know for a fact what Semenya’s gender status is. The IAAF have not yet released their official results. The allegations that were leaked by some of the media may or may not be accurate.
But what you say is very interesting. I’ll check it out.