South African World champion 800m runner Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite with no womb or ovaries, an Australian newspaper has claimed.
Quoting a source close to the International Association of Athletics Federations, the Sydney Daily Telegraph said Semenya had internal testes - male sexual organs which produce testosterone and which in turn produces muscle bulk, body hair and a deep voice.
The 18-year-old won gold with a sensational final-lap sprint to streak away from the competition in Berlin last month. Britain’s Jenny Meadows took bronze in that 800m final.
Now, the paper said, the IAAF is expected to disqualify Semenya from future events and advise an operation because the condition carries grave health risks.
The IAAF received Semenya’s gender test results today. However athletics chiefs said they would not be revealed for up to two weeks - once they had had a chance to speak with Semenya.
IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said the results would only be made public once other experts had studied them and the 800m World Champion herself had been contacted personally.
Mr Davies said: ‘We have the final results from the specialist tests carried out in Germany.
‘Nothing will therefore be announced or confirmed until we are in a position to have the expert evaluation of the results, and discuss them with the athlete.
‘We cannot give an exact timing but probably within the next couple of weeks.’
However the Sydney Daily Telegraph claimed the results had been leaked by a source.
Referring to Semenya as a ’she’, the paper said she has three times more testosterone than a normal female.
The gender-test results could see her stripped of the gold medal she won last month in Berlin, although the IAAF claimed the recovering the medal would prove difficult.
Semenya, said the paper, is unaware of the tests identifying her as a hermaphrodite.
Fans in South Africa have strongly defended the runner amid claims by doubters that she won her medal unfairly because she was really a man.
The population has rallied behind ‘Our Girl’, hitting back at the accusations with further allegations of racism.
Speechless!!!
If she has no womb or ovaries, that means she is a MAN!!!!
This girl and her family believes she’s a girl, and I believe she competed on that basis, believing she’s a girl. I also think that she and her family will be devastated, mortified, embarrassed. humiliated and incredibly hurt by this information (if confirmed) being made public.I’m appalled that any newspaper would publish unconfirmed rumours potentially so devastating to a young woman for the sake of “news”.
How disgusting that a newspaper can publish such a thing before the person in question is even aware.
The ANC MP is quite wrong to accuse the IAAF. It’s not sexist to ensure that people running in women’s races are women. If caster is hermaphrodite that’s neither one gender nor the other, but on balance it certainly looks like the evidence points to Semenya having far more male than female traits.
It’s scary that various -isms are being used to try to block an objective assessment of gender. No-one is female because they wish to be or because competing against women may be easier for them than competing against men. There are objective criteria for gender and no-one should try to stop their use.
A hermaphrodite has both male and female reproductive organs. If she has no womb or ovaries, and undescended testes, then she is surely a man and always has been.
i wish i coud see her vagina