Caster Semenya’s career ended quietly and sadly in Potchefstroom on Thursday.
She pulled out of what would surely have been her final fling on an athletics track.
The 32-year-old had warmed up to run the women’s 10,000m in the first event of the SA championships, won by her training partner Glenrose Xaba, but she failed to take her spot in the seven-lane line-up.
Her decision not to run — a first for the athlete who has been game throughout her career — came a day before the World Athletics guillotine was primed to fall on her and a host of other women athletes classified with differences of sex development (DSD).
Semenya took hormonal medication to reduce her naturally occurring high levels of testosterone when she competed from 2011 to 2015, but since the world governing body was forced to suspend its gender eligibility rules eight years ago, she has run freely.
And when World Athletics introduced new regulations in 2019, demanding she take medication once again to compete in any event from 400m to the mile, she refused, switching events.
She abandoned her favourite 800m, where she won Olympic golds at London 2012 and Rio 2016, as well as the world championships in 2009, 2011 and 2017. She also took the 1,500m bronze at the 2017 world championships and ran 400m times that suggested she could be a medal contender there.
Semenya walked away from that, and perhaps wisely so. The new regulations required her testosterone level to be half what had been permitted from 2011 to 2015.
Semenya initially tried her hand at the 200m, but lacking the explosive power required for that event she moved up to the 5,000m, where she was too heavy to be a top contender.
She failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and though she found her way to the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, last year, she failed to advance beyond the heats.
Last week World Athletics dropped a new bombshell, updating its DSD rules to include all athletics events, starting from Friday, the day before the 5,000m final here. The rules also dropped the DSD testosterone level to a quarter of what Semenya had been allowed from 2011 to 2015.
Semenya, who has been fighting the regulations legally and after losing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the Swiss federal court, is now awaiting a date from the European Court of Human Rights.
But even a victory there won’t necessarily change things — her case is against the nation of Switzerland, and World Athletics has pointed out that a judgment in her favour might not impact the body immediately.
And with Semenya steadfastly insisting that she wants to run freely, without taking medication, one has to assume that Thursday was her farewell.
She declined to talk to the media, but a member of her camp said she had decided not to run, refuting speculation she was injured.
And that is how the queen of South African athletics left the ballroom.
She might yet leave a legacy. Should her legal action be successful, she could save other DSD athletes, like Namibian sprinters Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi, who finished second and sixth at the last Olympics. Masilingi pulled up injured in the women’s 100m semifinals on Thursday.
Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, the perennial runner-up behind Semenya from 2016 to 2018, had more success in the 5,000m than the South African, clocking the fourth-fastest time in the world in 2021, though she was disqualified in Tokyo for stepping out her lane in the heats.
Seven years ago Semenya, Niyonsaba and fellow DSD athlete Margaret Wambui stood atop the women’s 800m podium.
They’re all out of athletics for the time being, unless they undergo the required hormonal treatment, which they’ll have to do for at least six months, meaning none of them can get to the world championships in Budapest in August.
At the same time World Athletics upped its gender eligibility rules, it also announced its policy for transgender women, after World Aquatics which prevents any transgender participation unless the athlete underwent transition before puberty.
World Athletics has won its long-standing battle against DSD athletes. Will it win the war? That’ll depend on the judges in Strasbourg, France.
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