Rio 2016: Can Caster Semenya And Dutee Chand Keep Running?

Her first Olympic victory was at the London Games in 2012 when she won silver in the women’s 800m race. She kept her world championships gold medal and title.

Bottom-line: Semenya broke no rules.

In Rio, France’s Justine Fedronic, who failed to qualify for the 800 final, said she had sympathy for Semenya’s situation but did not consider competing against her a fair fight. Her supporters have argued that many athletes are born with biological advantages of one kind or another, and it would be unfair to require her to undergo surgery or take chemical treatment to reduce her testosterone levels – as some athletics regulators have tried to demand.

Semenya has been at the centre of a raging controversy in recent years because of her naturally occurring condition, hyperandrogenism, which causes elevated testosterone levels.

South Africa’s social media has been united in furious defence of Ms. Semenya.

Semenya has remained graceful throughout the whole situation and in one interview with BBC, said that she would not become what people dictated. It is probably not something she was aware of most of her life and she is just trying to be out there are train and compete just like the rest of us so that is really not fair to her but it is not fair for others, too. The last time a South African team claimed 10 medals, but with more than two gold medals among them, was in Amsterdam in 1920, reports Reuters.

The IAAF gave no details, only saying: “The process initiated in 2009 in the case of Caster Semenya (RSA) has now been completed”. Caster has done nothing to be in that situation and have those high levels.

She finished in one minute 55.28 seconds with Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi trailing far behind in second place.

They also greeted Semenya with a warm cheer when she later accepted her gold medal at the podium ceremony.

Semenya has been in sterling form this season having run the season best time and then winning her heat and the semifinal race in Rio de Janeiro. She didn’t even qualify for the final of the 2015 world championships a year ago, finishing last in her semifinal. “Let’s focus first of all on the performance today, let’s not focus on any medication”, said Wambui.

Sceptics have been gunning for Semenya for long.

However, this ruling was reversed past year when Indian sprinter Dutee Chand successfully appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which suspended the practice of testosterone regulation and challenged the IAAF to present better evidence by July 2017.

Semenya appeared to cruise, only briefly unleashing her power with about 200 to go.

From a total of 306 sets of medals which were available to win throughout 28 Olympic sports, Team South Africa will depart Brazil with 10, which is exactly the tally they were aiming for during the August Games.