Caster Semenya

Mokgadi Caster Semenya grew up in Ga-Masehlong, a village in Limpopo province, where she ran barefoot with the boys because there was no girls team to race against. She was fast from childhood, and by her late teens she was beating senior athletes in South African competition. Nothing about her rise was unusual for a gifted runner from a poor rural area with no track.

In August 2009, aged 18, she went to the World Championships in Berlin and won the 800 metres by more than two seconds, a winning margin almost unheard of at that level. Instead of celebration, the questions began. The IAAF had already asked her to undergo sex verification testing before the final and leaked details of the results in the following days, exposing her to a level of public scrutiny few teenagers could withstand. She was withdrawn from competition for close on a year.

She returned in 2010 and kept winning for years afterward, taking Olympic silver in London and Rio and world titles in between, all while living under rules that periodically changed the terms on which she was allowed to compete. From 2018 she was required to lower her natural testosterone through medication to race in events from 400 metres to a mile, which she has said caused her constant sickness. She has refused to take the drugs since 2019 and has instead pursued the matter through the courts, arguing before the European Court of Human Rights that the regulations discriminate against her.

She has never been found to have cheated. Her fight has been simply for the right to compete as the woman she has always been, and it continues.