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PhotographyI don’t very much like (watching) sports. And by having neither a television, nor a radio, nor any time to do a lot of sports myself, I do succeed quite well not liking (watching) sports.
Then again, sometimes it just offers … interesting things to report about. For instance the leg amputee Natalie du Toit, who finished 16th in the women’s open water 10km race at the Olympics in Beijing, or the double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who was denied a shot at the Olympics … for being too fast.
Yesterday, it happened again.
Caster Semenya, 18 years old, won the gold medal in the 800 womens’ meters finals (1:56.72).
A group of doctors, including a gynecologist, an endocrinologist, an internal medicine expert, an expert on gender and a psychologist, have already started administering the extensive examination.
Why? Not because she’s been suspected of doping. But because (s)he’s suspected to actually be a man, and therefor the IAAF (the world governing body for track and field) confirmed yesterday that it had asked Caster to undergo a gender verification test.
Click for pictures.
(With thanks to HJ for the info.)
Update: sueddeutsche-science offers some in-depth analysis of the case in this article.
August 20th, 2009 at 23:56
hum. I did not think you would blog about this (no offense, just wondering). What is the particular reason?
August 20th, 2009 at 23:57
First, I have no idea what is “talked about” in the world, missing television and radio. And internet sources are not always a good predictor about what is reported on in other mass media.
Second, it fits neatly with the other 2 articles I wrote about sports.
Third, I very much like my first two sentences :)
August 21st, 2009 at 09:17
Reminds me of an episode of “House, M.D.” where they discovered that their patient was in fact male (while being a female model :-).