After South African runner Caster Semenya won the gold medal in the World Championship women's 800-meter race in Berlin, she was asked to undergo gender testing due to her masculine appearance.
The L. A. Times writes that Semenya has always been boyish. Since she was in elementary school, she would play soccer with the boys, wear pants instead of skirts, and was teased about looking like a boy. Her high school principal thought she was male until she was in the 11th grade.
However, the teasing never seemed to bother her and she kept on running.
Now her appearance is throwing into question whether her triumph at the Championship is legitimate. And testing for gender can take weeks.
Everyone who knows Semenya is certain that she's a girl. According to The Associated Press, no one has even questioned it. Her father told interviewers that "She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times."
She came almost out of nowhere to win the world championship in the 800 meters Wednesday in Berlin, far and away the fastest woman on the track.
Or was she?
Her time of 1 minute, 55.45 seconds was more than 2 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, but now Semenya's gender is the subject of an international investigation.
Even before Berlin, track officials were taking a closer look at the 18-year-old runner, following her performance last month at an international meet where she improved her personal bests in the 800 and 1,500 meters by huge margins.
Her family is outraged at suggestions that Semenya, who has a muscular build and a deep voice, isn't a woman.
"That's how God made her," Semenya's cousin, Evelyn Sekgala, told The Associated Press. "We brought her up in a way that when people start making fun of her, she shouldn't get upset."
Her father, Jacob, has no doubts.
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A gender test has been ordered for female 800 metres runner Caster Semenya after she became world champion.
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