Timely Thoughts

On another night of brilliant athletics, the public seemed to favour sensationalism above athletic performances.

South Africa 's Caster Semenya has had to overcome enormous odds over the last few days regarding her gender and before starting the Women's 800m final at the Berlin World Championships she made the simple gesture of 'brushing everything off her shoulders'.

Whether the public are intent on judging her regarding her gender on appearance or to view her as a human being who has had to overcome a lifetime of obstacles, will only be seen with time.

And how well she did perform, after Kenya 's Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei took up the front running after the first bend, Semenya waited patiently before moving alongside the Kenyan before taking the lead at the bell, reached in 56.83.

Down the backstraight the Ukraine's Yuliya Krevsun attempted to come on to level terms and this only seemed to spur the young South African on to maintain her lead and dominance over the field. She accelerated round the bend and on entering the final straight she gave a glance and then powered away from her opposition to win in a time of 1:55.45.

Behind her the field was decimated and a blanket finish for the remaining medals took place with the defending Champion, Jepkosgei Busienei, edging past Krevsun into Silver place, with Britain's Jenny Meadows pipping the Ukrainian on the line for Bronze in a Personal Best [PB] time of 1:57.93.

Less than 1 second seperated positions 2 to 7 and their dash for the line made exciting viewing.

Semenya yet again made the gesture of brushing her shoulders and had to make do with a subdued celebration.

Meadows had had this to say, stating that she was aware of the speculation about Semenya and presumed the South African had heard it as well before saying "If none of this is true, I feel very sorry for her". 

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This underlines the depth of the public and press, who have run scandulous headlines about Caster Semenya's gender without any basis of proof but what one considers as her appearance being manly. As mentioned elsewhere, I have been led to believe that the athlete was born as a hermaphrodite however this may fall into the category of speculation but this does seem the most likely.

What this did show is the immense strength of character of the athlete who stated

"I didn't open my mind to negative things; these things just made me stronger for the race".

Semenya's result is even more remarkable given the gender controversy the teenager has been submitted to in recent days.

This complex set of questioning and testing that Semenya faced must surely impact more than any other question put to a woman.

The fact that it has been necessary to undertake this so close to the running of the Final is plain daft and one can ask why this was not looked into by the IAAF when Semenya won the African Junior Championships in a World Leading 1:56.72 in July.

Semenya also participated in the World Junior Championships last year as well as winning the Commonwealth Youth Champs, so she was not an unknown in any sense of the term.

There was ample time for the IAAF to look in to the matter. Some people looking for people to blame are saying ASA (Athletics South Africa) are responsible for this shambles however I say "No", as they are quite confident in their athlete being a woman and Gideon Sam, the president of South Africa's Olympic governing body SASCOC, has said:

"We have every faith in Athletics South Africa and the team they selected to attend the World Championships in Berlin."

Sam also went on to state, "We condemn the way she was linked with such media speculation and allegation, especially on a day she ran in the final of her first major world event. It's the biggest day of her life".

Semenya did not attend the press conference for the medal winners and one hopes that the medal presentation on Thursday does not turn into an awful mess.

This is not about cheating but about a human being

Semenya's father, Jacob Semenya, pleaded: "I wish they would leave my daughter alone."

"She is my little girl. I raised her and I have never doubted her gender. She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times," Semenya told the Sowetan newspaper.

Semenya's paternal grandmother, Maputhi Sekgala, also spoke in defense of Semenya.

"The controversy doesn't bother me that much because I know she's a woman — I raised her myself," Sekgala told The Times, another South African newspaper.

"What can I do when they call her a man, when she's really not a man? It is God who made her look that way," Sekgala said.

Now on to the rest of the athletics

Men's 1500m, a double family triumph

Like father, like son. Bahrain's Yusuf Saad Kamel ran a tactically sound race to win the Men's 1500m in 3:35.93 thus emulating his father Billy Konchellah who won the 800m World Titles in Rome 87 and Tokyo 91.

My Fantasy Team athlete, Kenyan Asbel Kiprop, was dismal. He was poor tactically and still seemed slightly naive at Championship level, Kiprop was at the back of the field in a slow run race coming in to the last 100m and could only move up to 4th place and out of the medals. Worth a dismal 30 points. 

Another ex-Kenyan and now of the USA , Bernard Lagat. the defending Champion from Osaka grabbed Bronze. Lagat allowed himself himself to be boxed at a time when he should have been sprinting allowing unheralded Ethiopian Deresse Mekonnen to get a jump and to hold on to Silver with Kamal coming past in the final 50m.

It was an exciting race but very strange to watch unfold as the Kenyan Augustine Kiprono Choge expectabtly took the lead but did not provide a tempo that troubled anyone sauntering through 400m in 59.54 and the 800m in 2:00.18.

Another disappointment was France's Mehdi Baala who was well placed but simply faded down the final 100m to 7th place.

Amine Laalou of Morocco who had looked good in qualifying was another who gave himself too much to do and was never a factor over the last 100m.

Till this 1500m success, Kamel,
formerely known as the Kenyan Gregory Konchellah, had been seen more as
an 800m athlete and starts his 800m challenge on Day 6.

A noticeable element was that there were 5 Kenyan born athletes in the final.

Other events throughout the day and on a stunning evening

In the Women's 5000m heats, Meseret Defar of Ethiopia looked to put the disappointment of Monday night's 10000m loss by putting on  dominant display and in the process recorded the fastest time ahead of compatriot, nn, who won the 1st Heat.

Japan's Yurika Nakamura had every reason to be happy with her day's work as her PB of 15:21.01 got her through as fastest qualifier. Looking towards the final on Saturday I am hoping that the extra few days of recovering since the 10k will have her back in a Gold winning frame of mind as she is the defending champion from Osaka.

In the Women's 100m hurdles final, my Fantasy representative, Priscilla Lopes-Schliep of Canada grabbed Silver and I had no gripes as Jamaica's Brigitte Foster-Hylton, after years of attempting, grabbed Gold.

The Men's Decathlon looks to be unfolding into quite a competition with 7 athletes in close contention going into Day 2.

One event which became the top show for the host nation was the discus and especially when Robert Harting literally threw out of his skin to capture Gold with his last throw completely deflating the leader from Poland, Piotr Malachowski. Malachowski had set two National Records on his way to Silver and only succumbed his lead to Harting's 6th throw. The crowds went dizzy and the winner simply went ballistic, great drama.

Day 6 looks to have a great deal of interesting athletics in store.