THE oldest world record in outdoor athletics is the women’s 800m. The time to beat, of 1:53.28, was set by Jarmila Kratochvílova of Czechslovakia in July 1983.
No woman this century—and only one other in history—has run under 1:54. Yet there is some chance that this record will be broken at the Rio games, by the 800m’s in-form runner, Caster Semenya of South Africa.
And if Ms Semenya does take the record, it will be one of the biggest stories of the tournament. Why? Because some feel that Ms Semenya’s natural levels of testosterone mean that she should not be allowed to compete.
As an 18-year-old, Ms Semenya won gold at her first world championships in 2009, destroying the rest of the field by more than two seconds.
Before the race, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) confirmed that Ms Semenya was undergoing a sex-determination test.
An organisation spokesman said that the test had been ordered because of the dramatic improvement in Ms Semenya’s race times. The results of the test have, quite rightly, never been made public, but the IAAF banned her from competing until mid-2010, during which time it is thought she began taking testosterone-suppressing drugs. The resulting media circus was invasive. Meanwhile, the IAAF began an investigation into its rules surrounding intersex athletes and in 2011 it introduced a ceiling on the amount of testosterone that athletes can possess if they are to compete in women’s races. The Olympics adopted it in 2012. Perhaps because of the drugs, or injury, or the media scrum, Ms Semenya’s performances deteriorated. She won a silver medal at the London games in 2012, but her time, 1:57.23, was mediocre.
