Win or lose, Semenya will run
She seems a shoo-in to clinch the 800m gold in Rio. But the only certainty is yet more controversy
When Caster Semenya won the world championship 800m final in Berlin in 2009, she was rewarded with a ban on competing on top of a crushing invasion of her medical privacy.
The firestorm that started as soon as she crossed the finish line consumed sports administration careers like kindling and sparked a number of court cases and diplomatic fights.
If Semenya wins the 800m Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro this August, everything suggests that the furore will be worse. At stake this time is not one medal but the future of women’s sports — and the money and prestige that depend on it — in a world that is rapidly leaving binary sexuality behind, with all the political and religious turmoil brought about by that change.
If she performs well enough Semenya, who has sought as quiet a life as an athlete of her stature can reasonably aspire to, may become the biggest story of an Olympic Games also featuring the Zika virus and financial calamity. If she performs poorly, she will be accused of throwing the race for political reasons.
But large as those scenarios loom, the South African organisations that failed Semenya so spectacularly in 2009 stand proudly unprepared for what is to come.
“For us it is not an issue,” said Athletics South Africa (ASA) president Aleck Skhosana on preparations for any fallout around Semenya’s performance. “There is nothing to worry about.”
“No need to,” said Tubby Reddy, chief executive of local Olympic governing body Sascoc and the diplomatic chief of the South African team going to Rio, on whether his organisation had taken any pre-emptive measures. Questions on how Sascoc planned to deal with controversy were not applicable, he said.
In 2009 Sascoc decapitated ASA with suspensions because of its poor handling of the Semenya debacle.
On Thursday sports minister Fikile Mbalula said he could not “speak about what would not have happened”, but that he hoped South Africans would rally around Semenya: “Anything that seeks to undermine the standing of Caster [Semenya] I think is anti human rights and not worth promotion.”
Both the ASA and Sascoc said they had faith in the promises made by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to prevent a repeat of 2009, and to protect athletes such as Semenya from controversy.
The IAAF fought hard against challenges to the gender-testing regime under which Semenya would have competed in August, until they were temporarily struck down a year ago. After the IAAF lost, the IOC called on it to continue that fight.
But there will be “absolutely no debacle” this time, Sascoc’s Reddy told the Mail & Guardian.