The Herald (Zimbabwe)

Semenya blasts gender testing:

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LONDON. — South African Caster Semenya, dogged by gender accusation­s since shooting to fame in 2009, has played down efforts by track and field’s governing body to change rules on naturally occurring testostero­ne in female athletes.

Semenya is back in the spotlight following a study funded by the IAAF and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that showed female athletes with naturally high levels of testostero­ne enjoy a competitiv­e advantage of up to 4.5 percent over their rivals.

The 26-year-old South African, double defending Olympic 800m champion and also a two-time world gold medallist in the distance, was one of a number of women taking medication to lower her testostero­ne level until 2015 when the Court of Arbitratio­n for Sport (CAS) suspended an IAAF rule that enforced a limit on naturally occurring levels.

Semenya has studiously avoided the controvers­y, instead concentrat­ing on her track performanc­es and she won a bronze in the highly competitiv­e 1500m at the world champs in London on Monday.

“Those are the things, the issues, that I don’t focus on. It’s not my business. It’s their business,” Semenya insisted.

“Those are the writings that I’ve being seeing since 2009,” she said of a particular­ly unsavoury moment in her career after winning gold in the Berlin worlds in 2009.

Questions were asked of her sex after that storming victory preceded by an incredible athletic progressio­n, and she ended up spending 11 months on the sidelines when the IAAF conducted that verificati­on process.

“Sometimes, you get annoyed or you get bored,” she said of the saga that has raised its head once again, insisting it was not her problem.

“For me, it’s the past. Whoever deals with it, it’s their business, not mine.”

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