South African middle-distance distance runner Caster Semenya is a double Olympic champion and triple world, Championships gold medallist in her chosen distance, the 800m race. Her career, however, has come to highlight how authorities handling sports treat athletes whose bodies fall outside the standard ranges.
Semenya has a medical condition known as hyperandrogenism which makes her an athlete with differences in sex development and elevated levels of testosterone in her body. When she burst onto the big stage with a world title as a teenager in 2009, the governing body made her take a sex verification test More than a decade later, she continues to be embroiled in questions about her sex and the battle against rules imposed on her due to conditions she was born with dominates her life.
In 2011, the governing body said that all female athletes with higperandrogenism had to lower their testosterone levels with medication. The ruling was lifted in 2015 after Indian 100m sprinter Duter Chand had legally challenged it.
In 2018, however, a ruling was created that forbade women with similar conditions to compete internationally in middle distance races between 400m and 1,500m, unless they took medication Semenya contested it, but the ruling was upheld first by the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) in 2019 and then in a subsequent appeal court in 2020.
While the governing bodies maintain that rules like these are laid out in order to ensure a level playing field, athletes like Semenya believe that they are being discriminated against for something they are boen with Semenya feels she is being targeted and she is working to try and set things right for the coming generations.
What is hyperandrogenism?
Hyperandrogenism is a medical condition in women, and less commonly in men. It is characterised by high levels of androgens, thereby giving the condition its name. hyperandrogenism.
Androgens are hormones that contribute to the growth, development, and reproduction in both men and women. While androgens are usually thought of as male hormones, a small amount of it is usually produced by females naturally.
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