Running Battle: Hope for Caster Semenya as UN body adopts report on discrimination in sports

Caster Semenya was born to run. But instead of being able to compete on the world athletics track where she belongs, she has faced a protracted series of legal battles and setbacks since 2009 when she stormed onto the international athletics scene, winning her first World Championship 800m. 

Shortly after that win, and up until today, Semenya’s identity has been contested and scrutinised by International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) officials who insist that she become a guinea pig for dangerous medical procedures that will reduce her natural testosterone levels.  

According to the world’s highest athletics authority, Semenya is “not female enough” to participate in “female category” races and unless she undergoes their discriminatory medical procedures, she is not allowed to compete internationally in elite women’s competitions. 

But Semenya has not been deterred by the humiliating sex-determination testing, the calls for medical interventions or the legal opposition she has faced in the highest sporting echelons of power. She has spent millions of rand facing down the giants of the IAAF and she is not ready to quit. She remains resolute and determined to fight discrimination and unfairness in sports not only for herself, but for all women athletes facing similar scrutiny and questions about their identities. 

Semenya is not a person who decided on a whim to use her biological advantages to race as a female athlete. She was raised a woman and has been running in girl’s races all her life. Her entire community knows her as the strong yet quiet woman that she is. 

Human dignity and fairness are at the essence of Semenya’s case, but it can also be argued that endemic racism is seen in cases like hers. Athletes are targeted for one apparent reason, but the underlying reason is often prejudice and discriminatory policies that strike at the essence of their human dignity. 

As Semenya’s legal team, we are awaiting the decision to our appeal case before the Swiss Supreme Court of Appeal in Switzerland. If we win, it will overturn the Court of Arbitration in Sport’s (CAS) ruling that requires women athletes with so-called “differences of sex development” (DSD) to chemically or surgically lower their testosterone levels. 

Last week’s release of this report on eliminating discrimination in sports is an important one for us because it signals the growing international consensus against discriminatory and unfair policies in sport.  

Submitted for consideration by the South African Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva in February 2019, the new report denounces gender and race-based discrimination in sporting associations and bodies. It also cautions refrain from developing or enforcing policies that coerce or pressure women and girl athletes into undergoing unnecessary, harmful and humiliating medical procedures to participate in women’s events in competitive sports. 

It is particularly painful for Semenya to be prevented from doing what she was born to do and loves to do. And even more because as a South African she is protected by our Bill of Rights that is lauded across the world.