In It To Win It

Chances are, when she won the 2008 World Junior Championships race some 13 months ago, South African runner Caster Semenya didn't think she was trying to fool anyone. She entered as a woman because that's what she is.

But following the 2009 World Championships in Berlin in early August, the 18-year-old's gender was called into question after she shattered her previous personal record for the second time in two races, flexing her protruding biceps in celebration.

That's where it got interesting for the young woman with the rippling abs and innocent smile, who was so affected by the scrutiny she was receiving, she couldn't take her college finals. A rumor came out that she had both male and female sex organs. She was asked to take more gender tests.

So many people cared about what she was, not so much about who she was.

"She is my little girl," her father Jacob Semenya told a Sowetan newspaper as speculation mounted. "I raised her and I have never doubted her gender. She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times."

I can't imagine what it would be to have a daughter whose very gender is questioned, but I know how vehemently I would defend it.

On Thursday, it was announced that the International Association of Athletics Federations would allow her to keep her medal and prize money. No word yet on whether or not she'll still be allowed to compete with women. The South African sports ministry also said they would not release the findings of her gender test.

"Whatever scientific tests were conducted legally within the IAAF regulations will be treated as a confidential matter between patient and doctor," it said. "As such there will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things."

Whatever the results, she shouldn't be made some public spectacle or cheater. She didn't cheat. She played within the rules her body allowed her, whatever that may mean.

No matter what they say, those results don't change the fact that she's a human being just like the rest of us. And that's more important than any race she could ever win or the results of any test.