Gold medallist faces gender investigation
August 19th, 2009
The winner of tonight’s (19 Aug 2009) women’s 800m race at the World Athletics Championship is under investigation amid rumours that she is biologically male.
18-year old Caster Semenya won gold for South Africa in the final of the World Athletics Championship in Berlin.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has confirmed that a gender verification process is already underway after complaints were made at a race three weeks ago. The IAAF has not revealed who made the complaint.
The tests, made by a team including an endocrinologist, a gynaecologist, an internal medicine expert and a psychologist, will be available in several weeks. If they reveal Semenya to be male the runner would have to give up her gold medal.
Semenya has not commented on the rumours, but Molatelo Malehopo, general manager of Athletics South Africa insists that Semenya was right to run in the women’s race.
“She is a female,” insisted Malehopo.
“We are completely sure about that and we wouldn’t have entered her into the female competition if we had any doubts.
“We have not been absent minded, we are very sure of her gender.”
The International Olympic Committee stopped sex-testing athletes for ethical reasons in 1999, but resumed the practice in Summer 2008 for the Beijing Olympics.
There’s a really good interactive guide to how gender-testing works and why sex and gender identity are way more complex than most of us think: http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/gendertest/gendertest.html
K ∼ August 20th, 2009 8:09 pmIf she’s intersex then presumably that means she cannot complete in any atheletics competitions, which would be a tragedy, especially as it isn’t something anyone has any control over. What now, gender tests for all athletes just in case? And where are you going to draw the line? As K’s link illustrates, its not a simple issue.
Anastasia ∼ September 3rd, 2009 4:21 pm