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Caster is an amazing woman with an amazing body that allows her to compete at the highest possible levels of her sport and targeting someone who has never been accused of taking PEDs when the Russians got a slap on the wrist for SWAPPING OUT URINE in Sochi is gross and wrong. https://twitter.com/ap_sports/status/1303390475261554689
And even if I didn’t feel that way, the fact they lied to her about the purpose of an exam (because they didn’t want to say “we think you might be a dude”) is just unconscionable.
And she’s wasted years of her track career trying to fight this one out for the next generation and that’s so admirable. I wish this had been her win.
And her competitors calling her a man and comparing her to a variety of primates is disgusting. People who came in FOURTH were complaining!
Also if you think the Russians were adequately punished for what a completely independent report determined to be a state-sponsored doping program dating back to the USSR, they weren’t, and plenty of individual Russian athletes who hadn’t been linked to doping got to compete.
Sochi was SUCH a fuck-you. Normally, your state-sponsored doping program stops prior to the Olympics so you’ll test clean, but since it was IN Russia, they literally just took clean urine for each competitor and swapped it through an EMPTY OUTLET.
Both the A and B samples! Anyway, I’m obsessed with it and furious about Caster, who has not done a thing wrong. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html
(Again, the “Russian insider” brought his receipts from Russia when he fled and is now in WitSec and everything he said was confirmed by the independent McLaren report https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_Report)
Oh, and worrying about Caster setting Illegitimate Records, most of the women’s track records are from the pre-screening for testosterone era and no one has beaten them since we started testing, while men’s track gets faster. And that was deliberate and we rarely talk about it.
Men’s world record times in track, look at the dates:
Women’s world record times in track, very different dates, despite now having access to better conditioning and nutrition information:
So let’s not pretend Caster is trying to sully a perfect sport.
No hate for FloJo, an amazing athlete who did what most of her peers were doing and quietly retired when the new testing was announced. But the women’s track records are dirty as hell and everyone knows it.
And the violation of telling Caster she can compete and defend her title if she *takes drugs* to lower her natural levels of testosterone.
1. Bullied by her competitors, loads of racism involved (esp by Elisa Cusma, who came in 6th)
2. Sex test without consent, disguised as a doping check, which...must be illegal.
3. Years of legal battles.
4. Told her only option left is to take drugs to make her actual body worse.
2. Sex test without consent, disguised as a doping check, which...must be illegal.
3. Years of legal battles.
4. Told her only option left is to take drugs to make her actual body worse.
The fact she didn’t shave her armpits went on their checklist.
This piece is great on what a violation this testing is (be warned, there’s discussion of an Indian runner who died of suicide after her sex test was made public): https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-humiliating-practice-of-sex-testing-female-athletes.html
This piece is great on what a violation this testing is (be warned, there’s discussion of an Indian runner who died of suicide after her sex test was made public): https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-humiliating-practice-of-sex-testing-female-athletes.html
The bait and switch of the sex testing, from someone who endured it:
I do really appreciate that South Africa filed a human rights complaint with the UN for Caster, her country has had her back. And she is happily married to a lovely woman. But much of her window of competitive time has just been eaten up in courtrooms and op-eds.
And all of it, again, dating back to the racist insults and vicious public and private commentary of the women she competed against (and beat). That’s why they singled her out for a “sex test.”
Anyway, that’s what I think about Caster Semenya, thanks for listening.
One last thing:
