Track: Niyonsaba’s long nightmare continues with a DQ in Tokyo.
TOKYO >>
Francine Niyonsaba left for Tokyo convinced the hard part of her Olympic odyssey was behind her.
“This has not been an easy journey since that silver medal in Rio,” she said.
Since capturing the Olympic 800-meter silver medal for Burundi at the 2016 Games, Niyonsaba had been called a man by some of her rivals, had her medical records leaked to the media, acknowledged publicly she has Difference in Sex Development (DSD), a condition in which hormones, genes, reproductive organs can show both female and male characteristics, and been banned from competing in events from 400 meters to the mile by World Athletics, track and field’s global governing body, unless she took testosterone suppressing drugs.
Niyonsaba refused. Instead, she was the most unlikely qualifier to the Olympic Games 5,000 meters, an event more than five times her specialty.
So there Niyonsaba was at Olympic Stadium on a humid Friday night, hanging with the lead pack with some of the biggest names in international distance running in a 5,000 qualifying heat, a nearly 15-minute act of defiance and inspiration. She appeared to have qualified for Monday’s final comfortably.
“I wanted to be here ... to be an image to inspire young girls like me,” Niyonsaba said, “especially in girls in Africa.”
Behind her in the interview mix zone beneath the stadium, just off the track, a television screen flashed the 5,000 results. Next to Niyonsaba’s name was “DQ.” Disqualified.
A group of American reporters asked her why she thought she had been disqualified. Niyonsaba, unaware of the DQ, gave the reporters a bewildered look and then turned to look at the screen.
“Oh, my God,” she moaned. “Oh. No! Why this?”
She had spent much of the post-Rio years asking a similar question.
Niyonsaba has been at the center of one of track and field’s biggest controversies in the five years leading up to the Tokyo Games. Through the late 2010s, many of the world’s top half-milers argued that Niyonsaba, who trains in Eugene with the Oregon Track Club, South Africa’s Caster Semenya and Margaret Wambui of Kenya had an unfair advantage because of DSD.
“It’s like we’re running two different races,” Great Britain’s Lynsey Sharp complained.
The complaints and scrutiny only increased after the three Africans swept the Olympic 800 in Rio, Semenya taking the gold, Niyonsaba and Wambui claiming the silver and bronze medals.
Semenya was used to being a target. For much of a decade that saw her win two Olympic and three World Championships titles, she had been exposed and dissected and debated, the most intimate details of her very being belittled by critics and opponents who have mocked her in the crudest of terms.
Niyonsaba and Wambui also increasingly came under scrutiny post-Rio.
Niyonsaba acknowledged publicly in 2019 she has hyperandrogenism, a condition characterized by the production of more testosterone than women without the condition.
World Athletics introduced rules in 2018 requiring women with DSD to take hormone suppressing drugs for six months to be eligible to compete internationally in races between 400 meters and the mile, the three races Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui focused on. The rule went into effect in May 2019 and World Athletics testing found that Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui all had the 46,XY karyotype and produce levels of testosterone in the male range.
The women refused to take the hormones, Semenya complaining that World Athletics had reduced her to a “human guinea pig.”
Semenya filed an appeal with the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“For me, it’s about discrimination,” Niyonsaba said “It doesn’t make sense. For sure, I didn’t choose to be born like this. I love running, and I will not stop running.”
World Athletics maintains that female athletes with DSD produce a higher than normal level of testosterone. A 2017 IAAF-commissioned study found higher levels of testosterone in female athletes could produce a 3% improvement. Female athletes with DSD should be considered “biological males,” World Athletics told CAS. Attorneys and scientists for Semenya
dispute the study’s research.
A three-member CAS panel said the IAAF policy was “discriminatory” toward athletes with DSD, but two of the panel members nevertheless agreed with the IAAF that policy was “necessary, reasonable and proportionate” to counter advantages DSD athletes have over other female competitors.
“For sure, I didn’t choose to be born like this, what am I?” Niyonsaba said in an interview with the Olympic Channel. “I was created by God, so if someone has more questions about it, maybe they can ask God.”
Wambui quit training. Niyonsaba and Semenya turned their attention to the 5,000. Semenya failed in a last-minute bid in late to June to qualify for Tokyo, running 15 minutes, 50.12 seconds in a meet in Liege, Belgium, well off the Olympic standard of 15:10.00
That same month, Niyonsaba defied her detractors by running 14:54.38 in France. Despite all the obstacles placed in front of her, she was headed back to the Olympics.
Friday night, she ran in front of a field that included Kenya’s Hellen Obiri, winner of the last two World titles at 5,000, leading past the 2,000-meter mark. When she walked off the track believing she was headed back to another Olympic final, she was convinced she had delivered her message to World Athletics and to girls chasing their dreams across Africa and beyond.
And then she turned to see another nightmare on another TV screen. The official ruling was that Niyonsaba had stepped on the inside of the track at one point, although the violation wasn’t evident to those who watched the race.
Just like that, her joy and triumph were gone.
“No, no,” she said. Niyonsaba turned from the reporters and began to walk hurriedly away in search of an official, trudging into the dark night.
She took a few frantic steps and then turned back.
“I’m sorry,” she said “I’m sorry.”