Defiant Semenya aiming to get back on track

THE South African athlete forced to undergo a gender verification test after taking the 2009 World Championships by storm has set her sights on a comeback.

Caster Semenya insists she has remained unaffected by a controversy that could have ended her career and wrecked her personal life.

“I didn’t see it as a big deal, I know people talk, but I don’t care,” said the 800m world champion.

“I’m not ashamed of being myself ... I know who I am. There’s only one person who can judge me. There’s only God.”

Semenya talked about the controversy for the first time in last night’s BBC Newsnight programme.

The 20-year-old also hit back at speculation she had been forced to undergo treatment before being allowed to compete again.

She said: “Treatment? Why should I have treatment? You need to think about positive things, about the future.

“So that’s how I’m living. You don’t have to think about the things that happen in the past. They will destroy you.”

Those “things” began in July 2009 when Semenya grabbed the world’s attention when, at just 18, she knocked more than seven seconds off her 800m personal best to win the African Junior Championships.

Gossip amongst the other athletes about the South African’s visible physical strength and manly appearance began immediately and soon reached the corridors of power.

By the time she arrived at the world championships in Berlin the following month, her own national athletics body had begun gender testing without her knowledge.

She went on to take gold in Berlin, and so began the most extraordinary and confusing period of her life.

She was feted back home as South Africa’s “golden girl”, yet everywhere else faced accusations that she was not actually female. The gender tests were expected to take weeks.

In the end Semenya was forced to stay out of competition for 11 months and the results have never been made public.