Caster powers past the odds
Her salute at the Commonwealth Games medal ceremony reflects her fighting spirit on all fronts
CASTER Semenya has not only won it all on the international athletics track, she has also run races and lived life on her own terms, kicking out and blocking any attempts to rattle and disrupt her athletics life.
Semenya has done this by taking to the track and winning. And her winning has been achieved by strategic race planning and sports prowess, not by having pushed a competitor on the track or used doping.
And after a race its always Semenya, despite being the champion or medallist, who approaches her competitors first with a handshake, instead of waiting for those she has beaten to come and congratulate the champion.
But that’s not all that Caster Semenya is about. She is also awake and conscious about the society she lives in, and the past society that gave rise to the democratic era in South Africa which allows her to represent a democratic country.
And it happened on the athletics stage, at the gathering of a sports event called the Commonwealth Games, where former coloniser England competes with the former colonised.
Debutante Commonwealth Games athlete and gold medallist Semenya displayed her consciousness. She raised the black power salute at her 800m gold medal ceremony – 50 years after two black American male athletes, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, in defiance of racism and racial prejudice, raised the black power protest salute at the 1968 Olympic Games.
In performing this salute, a symbol of resistance and power undertaken by oppressed people and those resisting injustices, Caster Semenya, who became a double gold medallist at her first Commonwealth Games in Australia, became the first South African athlete ever to raise the salute at an international sports event.
It was a powerful representation undertaken by a phenomenal woman athlete. Caster Semenya was to state after the medal ceremony that what she had done was in remembrance and recognition of South Africa’s premier black woman freedom fighter , Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Despite South African sports officialdom and international sports organisations wanting their players and athletes “to stay out of politics” and “stay away from political slogans”, some athletes have never bowed to sports officialdom when it comes to critical consciousness and awareness. Athletes have called out injustices in society and in their sports.
As South Africa’s most decorated able-bodied black sportswoman, Semenya has delivered nothing less than pride, joy and happiness for South Africa since her athletics accomplishments surfaced. She was South Africa’s only black sportswoman medallist at the Commonwealth Games, delighting a sports supporting nation with her spectacular record- breaking wins and feats.
She competes on the athletics stage under the gaze of those who insist on questioning and challenging her black woman’s body. Again, there are indications that come November this year, the IAAF will have a resolution in place that will directly affect and impact on Semenya’s participation in races.
But through all the misogyny, the white supremacist questioning, the male gaze, sexual and racial prejudice and homophobia, Semenya rides wave after wave, with her sole focus being her performance and achievements on the athletics track.
When Semenya competes in sport, she does so as a targeted black woman in sport; targeted for sexual and racial prejudice and her black woman’s body.
Some athletes who can’t perform with her abilities attack Semenya’s performances without applauding her achievements. It’s as if Semenya, the Olympic, World, Commonwealth and African champion, literally runs in chains.
But she competes, demonstrates her best ability and performance and wins, most times; this despite all the negatives thrown at her black being.
Semenya was persecuted as a teenage woman in international athletics.
But surrounded by love, support and admiration from South Africans especially, and black woman warrior Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Semenya has not only triumphed, against the odds, but defeated the odds with her prowess.
That she chose to recognise and give honour to Madikizela-Mandela with the black power salute associated with freedom and the Struggle journey in South Africa reveals the all-powerful strength of one tenacious, fabulously talented black sportswoman that is Semenya.