Replay - Semenya wins 800m

Double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes says the handling of the gender dispute surrounding South Africa's Caster Semenya has been "terrible".

The IAAF ordered tests to be carried out on the 18-year-old, and it became public soon before she won 800m gold at the World Championships in Berlin.

"Why did it get out in public in such a humiliating way?," Holmes asked.

"To not have any conclusive evidence that she is anything but a girl is terrible," she told BBC Radio Kent.

The Tonbridge athlete added: "This is something that should have been done in a private environment if there was any speculation.

Semenya came into the World Championships in Berlin in prime form

"Can you imagine an 18-year-old girl who's just about to run her first world championships and to be told there's going to be this investigation, it's just incredible.

"Can you imagine the intrusion into her privacy and how humiliated she must feel?"

The IAAF requested the gender verification tests three weeks before the World Championships, amid fears that she should not be allowed to run as a woman.

Holmes acknowledged that Semenya does possess certain masculine traits, but says she is not the only woman in athletics to do so.

"Yes she has the visual affect of being masculine, but there's have been a lot of people who have been like that in sport," she said.

"She is from a rural town in South Africa. There are a lot of young girls who look like her.

"If for whatever reason they find she has got more hormones than others, then that's something that should have come out post this event."

Holmes' double was the highlight of the Olympic Games for Britain in 2004

Holmes, who won gold in the 800m and 1500m in Athens in 2004, said she was pleased that hundreds of people had turned out to greet Semenya when she arrived home on Tuesday.

"I just feel so sorry for her and I'm just so glad that South Africa are going to do a massive welcome home because until they've got absolute answers, she's a young girl who's won the world championships and deserves all the accolade."

World 1500m silver medallist Lisa Dobriskey has also criticised Semenya's treatment.

"I think it is a difficult issue to deal with because it's an issue that's going to generate quite a lot of controversy," she said.

"But it's a human being that you're talking about and maybe the way it's been handled it's not been the best or the most dignified."

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version