Mokgadi Caster Semenya South African athlete born on January 7, 1991 in Ga-Masehlong, Limpopo province , middle distance runner who won the gold medal in the 800 meter sprint at the 2009 and 2017 world championships as well as the medal winner of gold in that same distance at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Summary
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Sports career
- 2 Why was Caster Semenya investigated?
- 2 Personal brands
- 3 Sources
Biographical synthesis
Mokgadi Caster Semenya Born on January 7, 1991 in Ga-Masehlong, a town near Polokwane in the Limpopo province of northern South Africa , daughter of Dorus and Jacob Semenya, her life was spent in Fairlie village, 40 miles from the city closest in the company of her four sisters and a brother. Semenya attended Nthema High School where she played soccer and trained every day often running from town to town after school, then went on to study Sports Science at Northwestern University.
At the 2009 African Junior Championships, Semenya won the 800m and 1500m competitions with times of 1: 56.72 and 4: 08.01 respectively, simultaneously breaking the South African Senior and Junior records of Zelda Pretorius in 800m in 1: 58.85, and Zola Budd’s 1500m in 2: 00.90, respectively.In August of the same year at the age of 18, he won gold at the 800m World Championship with a time of 1: 55.45 in the final, setting the best time of the year. Semenya began to receive widespread acclaim, and was also voted the number one 800m female runner by Track & Field News in 2009. However, the public attention she received was highly controversial about her sexual identity and was forced to be the center of a public debate on hyperandrogenia,
Sports career
Winner of the gold medal in the women’s 800m sprint at the World Championships in 2009, 2011, 2012 and London 2017 in which she also won a bronze medal in the 1,500m. Her gold medals at the 2011 and 2012 World Cups were awarded to her after Russian winner Mariya Savinova Farnosova was stripped of her title due to doping offenses. Mokgadi Caster Semenya was the first runner to win three 400m, 800m and 1500m titles at the South African National Championships in April 2016 setting world records of 50.74 and 1: 58.45 in the first two events, and a 4: 10.93 in the 1500m. He also won gold in the 800 meters at the Rio de Janeiro Brazil Olympics , and in April 2018was victorious in the women ‘s 800m and 1500m at the Games of the Commonwealth of Gold Coast .
Why was Caster Semenya investigated?
After winning the gold medal at the 2009 World Championships by beating her best rival by four seconds, Semenya was subjected to gender tests. It was barred from international competitions for nearly a year before being cleared by the International Association of Athletics Federations . The IAAF believes that all other hyperandrogenic athletes should not compete unless they are trying to curb their naturally high testosterone levels. Following the investigation of her case, testosterone testing was introduced to identify cases where testosterone levels rose above an arbitrary level. And if women overcame it, they had to lower it with hormonal treatment.
Semenya and other female athletes have faced legal challenges claiming that their high testosterone levels are “completely natural” and that the IAAF rule is discriminatory against women. Caster accepted the rules and complied with the treatment, which kept her off the slopes. Upon returning, he won the silver medal at the 2011 World Cups and at the 2012 London Olympics. 2016 was the most successful year of his career. He won the 800 m and 1500 m events in the African championship, and won the coveted gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Gameswith a spectacular time of 1 ‘55.28, her new personal best, in what was the first medal in history for a South African athlete in track events. Today, at 27, Caster continues to run the present and look to the future. Everything indicates that he still has many pages to write in the history of athletics.
Personal brands
| Test | Weather | Place | Date |
| 800 m | 1 ‘55.16 | London (GBR) | 08/13/2017 |
| 1500 m | 4 ‘01.99 | Durban (RSA) | 06/24/2016 |
