Caster Semenya
Trending
In Rio, Caster Semenya sped to the finish line at the women’s 800 meter in 1:55.28 minutes, winning gold for South Africa and causing sections of the media to froth in the mouth once again about the fact that she is an exceptionally fast woman. The IAAF (the track and field federation in charge of regulating the sport) has subjected Semenya to every form of public scrutiny possible for her high levels of testosterone that causes her to be hyperandrogenic.
In their demand for her levels to be synthetically lowered, in their public announcements of their belief that she should not compete in the women’s category and in their morbid sympathy for Semenya’s losing competitors the bastions of liberal media have made the 25-year-old’s athletic existence a story to be moulded and rescripted as they please.
The same voices that decry Russia’s state-sponsored doping also demand for Semenya’s testosterone levels to be artificially brought down – something that apparently doesn’t come in the way of their demand for clean athletes in sport. Amidst the well-founded disgust in the fact that similarly fast athletes like Katie Ledecky hardly ever invoke scrutiny as relentless as Semenya’s brilliance has, Caster herself has spoken little on herself with the world’s jury of scientists still out on whether elevated testosterone levels offer an athlete an unfair advantage.
India too is not far behind when it comes to recognising that female athletes are (surprise, surprise) different from one another. The names of Dutee Chand, Pinki Pramanik and Santhi Soundarajan ring the problem of accusing a non-conforming female athlete closer home.
The Rio games has cemented her position as one of the fastest, but it has also brought to light, in Semenya’s words, the fact that sport is “supposed” to unify a world and be about performance alone.
