Punished amid misguided transgender debate
BURIED somewhere within Lionel Messi’s DNA must be a coding that made him able to whip in that magical free kick – from 30 yards out – against Liverpool in the Uefa Champions League on Thursday.
Exceptional athletes are handed something by God or science, depending on your beliefs, while they are still in the womb.
Sure, hard work, dedication, environment and practice all come into play but for players such as Messi, they have been given exceptional gifts on a cellular level.
It is what makes sport so beautiful. You can’t manufacture talent and that is why athletes regularly rise from slums, favelas and inner city alleyways. No amount of money or training can make up for genetic gifts – and practice and environment only go so far in refining an athlete’s skills.
The landmark ruling handed down by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) this week (upheld on appeal) centres around testosterone limits for female runners. The defendant, or should I say victim, in this ruling is female runner Caster Semenya, who must now reduce her testosterone levels to compete. This is not only a slap in the face for Semenya, but the thing that makes sports so beautiful: naturally gifted athletes are such a treat to watch.
The South African has hyperandrogenism (a medical condition which means she produces higher than normal levels of testosterone) and this ruling is so idiotic one wonders how professionals could have made it, and how long it will stand (note: she can apparently still compete in 5,000m events or longer, yet another glimpse into the airhead rules set up by the IAAF).
It’s when you look at the other side of this that things get even more confusing.
While Semenya now sits on the sidelines because taking testosterone-reducing medication will destroy her body, transgender athletes such as now retired mixed martial artist Fallon Fox and Brazilian volleyball player Tiffany Abreu competed against women after transitioning.
Yet here we are, telling a female she’s too naturally gifted to compete against other women.
Semenya has to live with her medical situation, which is not only something that gives her higher levels of testosterone, but a bucket list of other things as well.
The rare condition also brings along a host of negative side effects such as acne, balding, infertility, menstrual irregularities, skin inflammation and Type 2 diabetes to top it all off. Sure, Semenya is dominating her field right now, but should we ask her to go line up with the men?
Not a chance. Her best 800m time, 1:54:25, is still only the fourth best for women. The world record holder, Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvilova, set the benchmark in 1983 and it is widely believed that she was taking some form of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) that are now banned.
If Semenya were to compete against the men, her best time would not even get her into the IAAF World Indoor Championships.
Let’s not forget all the athletes who used steroids and PEDs. The list is War and Peace long: Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin, etc. Athletes regularly get lengthy bans for using PEDs, yet return from suspension.
Semenya, according to one of her sport scientists, Ross Tucker, will lose about seven seconds from her 800m time. Basically, she will go from a superstar to an afterthought. Talk about getting screwed.
And then there was double amputee Oscar Pistorius, who before he shot his girlfriend through a bathroom door was competing against normal men with custom-manufactured prosthetics. His bionic blades, which earned him the nickname “Blade Runner”, started a slippery slope in how we categorise athletes as either disabled or able bodied.
The IAAF has set a dangerous precedent in which those born with certain medical conditions will now have to take drugs to compete.
I’m not sure on what planet this sounds logical, but in the halls of the IAAF it seems that backward thinking and brain-dead decisions are the new norm.