Following her remarkable win in Berlin on Sunday some competitors have lashed out at athlete Caster Semenya, focusing on her gender.
Semenya won the 800m race, her third in a row since being cleared to start running in July after almost a year in limbo while she awaited results of gender testing.
Diane Cummins of Canada, who came in eighth, spoke out against Semenya after the event.
“Even if she is a female, she’s on the very fringe of the normal athlete female biological composition from what I understand of hormone testing,” said Cummins.
“From that perspective, most of us just feel that we are literally running against a man,” she added.
Semenya’s coach, Michael Seme, responded that “People are people and they will say things, but good luck to them. We have no problem. If these athletes don’t want to come and run, it’s up to them.”
He insisted that the 19 year old runner was not fazed by the remarks: “We don’t even care about the past now. We’re just looking forward to new things and shouldn’t be talking about the old ones. That is now over and gone.”
Semenya was suspended from running in August last year after concerns were raised about her gender. In July the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) gave her the all-clear to compete as a woman.
The results of her medical tests have not been made public.
4 Comments
Caster. Its just sour grapes, its the IAAF’s opinion in this matter that counts!
Good for you Caster!
Wikileaks. Somebody should leak her medical tests to Wikileaks and prove to everyone she’s a female. ‘She’ doesn’t even have breasts for crying out loud.
Go Caster Go!!!
I don’t understand these people, she’s a women for goodness sake. Who do they want her to run with then?
GOOD LUCK. SHe is a woman and that is it, het competitors now is affraid that they will never ever get to the first place again. There are so many female runners that look like men and more manly Caster can ever be like the USA 800m runner and Diane she can be very quit she has now breast the only thing that makes her female is the blond hair so please these athletes must get a life if the shoe was on the other foot they will not respond like this.