Semenya on track for Rio gold but she’s running in an ethical minefield
Some days it is almost possible to feel sorry for Lord Coe. He watched, powerless, in Doha last Friday as an ethical minefield ran the fastest time in the 800 metres this year. Caster Semenya is back and, quite possibly, on course for olympic gold.
Not that she is doing anything wrong. She runs with the body a believer would argue God gave her. Yet that body is unique. Precise details remain private but it is believed Semenya has natural genetic advantages as an athlete. Previously, they were controlled; now they are not. And the debate over this decision and its ramifications may dominate the agenda around her sport this summer.
Semenya, a South African middle-distance runner, became famous after her 800m win at the 2009 World Athletics Championships. Just hours before the final it was revealed she had been required to undergo gender testing. The case caused massive controversy and was handled so poorly by the IAAF and South African authorities that subsequently gender testing was replaced by an upper limit for the testosterone levels of female athletes.
Semenya’s hormones, it was concluded, aided her. She was required to take other hormones as balance. Since when, she slipped down the rankings. Semenya took olympic silver in 2012 but, while she remained a fine athlete, she was no longer exceptional. Friday brought her first Diamond League win since 2011.
Then, in July 2015, an Indian sprinter, Dutee Chand, won a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Chand also has naturally-occurring high testosterone, but her lawyers argued it was discrimination to not allow her to make the most of genetic advantages. Basketball players are not sanctioned for being tall, and men are not screened for testosterone levels. A male runner could also have a genetic benefit but that would be permitted.
The IAAF were charged with proving that Chand’s hormones made her closer to a male competitor than female, and couldn’t. There is now a two-year suspension of the rule while further investigations are made — and Semenya is coincidentally a different athlete.
Her coach, Jean Verster, says her current form is unrelated to changes in hormone treatment, but many are sceptical. At the South African championships in April she became the first person to win 400m, 800m and 1500m.
Semenya’s 400m and 800m times were the fastest in the world this year and she didn’t even look fully extended. It was the same in Doha in the 800m. She has run the two fastest 800m times in the world this season, the fifth fastest 400m and is two places outside the top 20 in the 1500m. If she arrives in Rio and cleans up, the debate around her will rage again.
‘Remember, she’s a human being, she didn’t make herself,’ says Verster, and rightly. Yet the IAAF were disappointed by the Court of Arbitration decision, feeling counteraction of hormones was a legitimate compromise. The only person capable of beating Semenya in London in 2012, Russia’s mariya Savinova, has latterly been exposed as a drug cheat. What if rivals argue cheating is their only chance if Semenya is on the start line?
This is the IAAF dilemma. An appeal could penalise an athlete for making best use of her natural physical state. The alternative is a race with one winner.