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).

I’ll bring the BBQ sauce…

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

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…

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).