Women's Hoops Blog

Inane commentary on a game that deserves far better


Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Mechelle continues: The ‘gender’ question: Part 3
The South African federation is trying to pin all the blame on the IAAF, which now acknowledges it never should have gone public with the fact that Semenya was being tested until the tests were complete and a ruling made. (That is still pending.)

There’s no doubt the IAAF handled this poorly. However, the questions about Semenya were coming from fellow competitors, officials, spectators and media. It would be great if we lived in a world where when a teen-ager from a poor village rather suddenly became an unexpected track champion, everyone just rejoiced at such a discovery of talent. But elite track and field has had so many issues with PEDs that there is no such thing anymore as an “unquestioned” success story.