Caster Semenya

Mokgadi Caster Semenya OIB (born 7 January 1991) is a South African middle-distance runner and winner of two Olympic gold medals and three World Championships in the women's 800 metres.

In July, Semenya participated in the 2008 World Junior Championships in the 800 m and did not qualify for the finals.

She won gold at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games with a time of 2:04.23.

In the African Junior Championships, Semenya won both the 800 m and 1500 m races with the times of 1:56.72 and 4:08.01, respectively.

With that race she improved her 800 m personal best by seven seconds in less than nine months, including four seconds in that race alone.

She first won gold at the World Championships in 2009 and went on to win at the 2016 Olympics and the 2017 World Championships, where she also won a bronze medal in the 1500 metres.

Following Semenya's victory at the 2009 World Championships, she was made to undergo sex testing, and cleared to return to competition the following year.

The 800 m time was the world leading time in 2009 at that date.

It was also a national record and a championship record.

Semenya simultaneously beat the Senior and Junior South African records held by Zelda Pretorius at 1:58.85, and Zola Budd at 2:00.90, respectively.

In August, Semenya won gold in the 800 metres at the World Championships with a time of 1:55.45 in the final, again setting the fastest time of the year.

In December 2009, Track and Field News voted Semenya the Number One Women's 800-metre runner of the year.

Following her victory at the world championships, questions were raised about her sex.

Having beaten her previous 800 m best by four seconds at the African Junior Championships just a month earlier, her quick improvements came under scrutiny.

The combination of her rapid athletic progression and her appearance culminated in World Athletics (formerly called the IAAF) asking her to take a sex verification test to ascertain whether she was female.

The IAAF says it was "obliged to investigate" after she made improvements of 25 seconds at 1500 m and eight seconds at 800 m – "the sort of dramatic breakthroughs that usually arouse suspicion of drug use".

The sex test results were never published officially, but some results were leaked in the press and were widely discussed, resulting in at the time unverified claims about Semenya having an intersex trait.

In November 2009, South Africa's sports ministry issued a statement that Semenya had reached an agreement with the IAAF to keep her medal and award.

News that the IAAF requested the test broke three hours before the 2009 World Championships 800 m final.

IAAF president Lamine Diack stated, "There was a leak of confidentiality at some point and this led to some insensitive reactions."

The IAAF's handling of the case spurred many negative reactions.

A number of athletes, including retired sprinter Michael Johnson, criticised the organisation for its response to the incident.

There was additional outcry from South Africans, alleging undertones of European racism and imperialism embedded in the gender testing.

Many local media reports highlighted these frustrations and challenged the validity of the tests with the belief that through Semenya's testing, members of the Global North did not want South Africans to excel.

The IAAF said it confirmed the requirement for a sex verification test after the news had already been reported in the media, denying charges of racism and expressing regret about "the allegations being made about the reasons for which these tests are being conducted".

The federation also explained that the motivation for the test was not suspected cheating but a desire to determine whether she had a "rare medical condition" giving her an "unfair advantage".

The president of the IAAF stated that the case could have been handled with more sensitivity.

On 7 September 2009, Wilfred Daniels, Semenya's coach with Athletics South Africa (ASA), resigned because he felt that ASA "did not advise Ms. Semenya properly".

Eight months later, in July 2010, she was cleared again to compete in women's competitions.

After the doping disqualification of Mariya Savinova, she was also awarded gold medals for the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 Olympics.

Semenya has the intersex condition 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency.

Individuals with this condition have normal male internal structures that are not fully developed during the embryo's development, resulting in external genitalia that appear ambiguous or female at birth.

Although Semenya was assigned female at birth, she has XY chromosomes, undescended testes, and naturally high testosterone levels in the typical male range.

However, Semenya has rejected the label of "intersex," calling herself "a different kind of woman."

In 2019, new World Athletics rules came into force preventing athletes like Semenya with certain disorders of sex development (DSDs) from participating in 400m, 800m, and 1500m events in the female classification, unless they take medication to suppress their naturally high testosterone levels.

Semenya has filed a series of legal cases to restore her ability to compete in these events without testosterone suppression, arguing that the World Athletics rules are discriminatory.

Semenya was born in Ga-Masehlong, a village in South Africa near Polokwane (previously called Pietersburg), and grew up in the village of Fairlie, deep in South Africa's northern Limpopo province.

She has three sisters and a brother.

Semenya attended Nthema Secondary School and the University of North West as a sports science student.

She began running as training for association football.