Run to Ground
There is an article that is worthwhile reading on stuff about the hounding of the runner Caster Semenya on the question of her gender. I confess, I was revolted by the reaction of the press and the olympic committee. I was also shocked that the olympic committee appeared to have no procedures set down for verifying gender. Their dithering made the whole fiasco so much worse and effectively destroyed her chances of ever competing again. As the writer of the article concludes:
“Even if Semenya gets the green light, it’s hard to imagine how she can run knowing every eye in every stadium will be studying her intently, trying to determine if she is really a he.
“Yes, it will be nice if track officials make amends by allowing her to keep her gold medal and $60,000 first prize.
“Would be even nicer if they could give her back her dignity, too.”
Indeed.
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Nov 24 09 8:09 am
Well how about blaming South African Athletics who knew full well long before Berlin that there was an issue here and could have and should have got it resolved before Castor Semenya competed there.
The issue of men competing as women has blighted elite womens sport for more than seventy years now and probably will continue to do so for as long as there is elite womens sports.
Andrei´s last blog ..New Zealanders sold down the river by Nick Smith
All the more reason for the olympic committee to have it’s act together.
Nov 24 09 9:33 am
Andrei does have a point, Semenya is probably partially AIS. Surely, if we are going to have separate Men’s and Women’s events at some point you have to define a difference. Otherwise we may as well just run one set of events. Hell, I’m (or more used to be) a pretty average long distance runner, but I regularly finished amongst the top 3 women in my age group in multiple events, they all received prizes for being in the top 3 (or whatever), I didn’t because the male age group was more competitive, is that reasonable ?
Sorry, I feel sympathy for Semenya over the way she was treated, but the issue did not arise out of no-where, the South African’s knew about queries, and they should have settled them before she raced. It isn’t easy for anyone in the intersex space, whether through AIS or other causes, but it exists and needs to be appropriately dealt with. My understanding was that AIS people could compete as women provided that they were tested and there response to testosterone was essentially nil, which sometimes put them at a disadvantage to “normal” women. But if you don’t, where do you draw the line, a 50% AIS person would have a significant advantage and yet could still be externally apparently female.
Nov 24 09 12:24 pm
I’m with both Andrei and Ed here. If we think it important to have separate men’s and women’s running events, then we need to think about why that is.
In my opinion, it is because some people (women) are genetically predisposed to run slower. So, if that is our basic reasoning, then logically we need to work out whether each of the “female” competitors we have in the women’s race are in the situation of being genetically slower.
If Caster didn’t have that genetic handicap, it stands to reason that she shouldn’t be running in the event designed for people who do have that handicap. Otherwise, it is like turning up to the wheelchair olympics when you’re not in a wheelchair. (well, actually, since wheelchair road racers are much faster than runners, it is more like someone in a wheelchair turning up to the normal olympics, but you get the idea).
I see only three real choices here:
1. Agree that having special races for those who have different genetic abilities is a bit silly, and get rid of separate men’s and women’s races. I mean, we don’t have separate sprint races for people with lots of fast twitch muscle fibres. I don’t see this change happening any time soon.
2. Do genetic tests, and only allow those who are genetically disadvantaged in running (i.e. women and those with similar genes) to compete in women’s running. Caster probably wouldn’t be able to run, and probably wouldn’t be competitive in men’s races.
3. Create a special “in-between” set of races for not-women not-men. We’d end up kind of like the special olympics – lots of classes for people with different degree of disability. Can’t imagine that being compelling viewing (and remember, at the end of the day, all this sports is just a large business enterprise focused on pulling in TV audiences).
Nov 24 09 12:55 pm
I don’t know if you people know it but a transgender post op females can compete as women in Olympic events and this has been the case since Athens 2004 – it does seem to me that Caster Semya has a better case to be considered a woman than a trans-sexual in this context but I still think she shouldn’t be allowed to compete.
Funny how South Africa is throwing up these curly ones – there is also the case of Oscar Pistorius who has no legs but runs on Ossur artificial legs and can run Olympic times in the 100m 200m and 400m events.
After much toing and froing he was ruled eligible to compete at Beijing but in the event did not qualify for the South African team.
The thing is of course artificial limbs are likely to improve and thus Mr Pistorius’ times (or someone who comes after) will turn in times that no able bodied athelete will ever be able to match.
Andrei´s last blog ..New Zealanders sold down the river by Nick Smith
I’m waiting for someone to argue that all the runners could then amputate their legs and get fitted with artificial ones…
Nov 24 09 1:10 pm
Which will, once again, lead to those who are genetically or otherwise accidentally gifted getting an advantage. Kind of like what already happens in sport – no matter how hard I train (and, lets be honest, I don’t like pain, so this is only a thought experiment) I’ll never be a world class runner. Should there be a special category for those genetically disadvantaged middle aged white guys?
If you start thinking about this too much, you start to realise that sport should only be interesting when you participate. Watching it is just another flavour of the old school Roman circus – all we need are some lions for our entertainment.
We should divide sport into
– the entertainment bit – in which the rules should be driven by what is most entertaining and profitable, not by some delusions of fairness, and
- the bit you do for personal enjoyment, which doesn’t really need special male and female groupings – it just needs A grade, B grade etc so that you can compete against people of similar ability and therefore have fun
Nov 24 09 6:36 pm
PaulL Watching it is just another flavour of the old school Roman circus – all we need are some lions for our entertainment.
I’ll bring the BBQ sauce…
Nov 25 09 11:30 am
I remember when these kind of claims were made against the Williams sisters in Tennis. The argument went that nobody would beat them because they had abnormally high levels of testosterone (genetic, not artificial). And yet they got beaten.
OK, tennis is more technique and running more brute force, but still, if the situation was handled differently off the bat, she may have gone down as a brilliant though controversial athlete.
Instead she got treated like a cheat (maybe even worse, as I don’t think a drug cheat faces this level of public humiliation).