from www.thesun.co.uk – SOUTH Africa reacted angrily today to world champion runner Caster Semenya’s test results that found she was a hermaphrodite – and threatened a “third world war” over the affair.
Gold-medallist Semenya, 18, has both male and female organs, it was claimed this week.
And sources close to the International Association of Athletics Federations — who ordered extensive tests on the teen after her amazing 800m win at the World Athletics Championships last month — say the results mean she could still be stripped of her medal.
Semenya is claimed to have NO womb or ovaries — and has internal testes, the male sexual organs which produce testosterone.
The row over Semenya’s biology has caused huge divisions — with South African politicians calling slurs she is a man “racist and sexist.”
Her birth certificate has the teen listed as female and urine tests showed that, despite her having higher than average male hormone levels, they are within the official limits for a woman.
And today the country’s sports minister Makhenkesi Stofile said: “I think it would be the third world war. We will go to the highest levels in contesting such a decision.
“I think it would be totally unfair and totally unjust.”
President Jacob Zuma also hit back saying: “I don’t know why we should not respect the privilege between the doctor and the patient.
“Why, when the tests have been done, why was it published?”
An IAAF source was quoted yesterday as saying: “There certainly is evidence now that Semenya is a hermaphrodite.
“But the trouble is the IAAF now have the whole ANC and the whole of South Africa on their backs.
“Everything is going to have to be done absolutely by the book, no question of a challenge to our findings.
“There’s all sorts of scans you do. This is why it’s complicated.
“In the past you used to do a gynaecological exam, blood test, chromosome test, whatever.
“That’s why the findings were challenged, because it’s not quite so simple.
“So what they do now is they do everything, and then they can say look, not only has she got this, she’s got that and the other.
“The problem for us is to avoid it being an issue now which is very personal: of the organs being a hermaphrodite, of not being a ‘real’ woman.
“It’s very dramatic.”