LONDON, 7 Nov. (PA Media/dpa/EP) –
The South African athlete Caster Semenya, double Olympic champion, is clear that she is “not” going to be ashamed “for being different” and that the genetic differences with which she was born do not prevent her from knowing that she is “a woman”, while she warned that currently is focused on “winning battles against the authorities” rather than competing.
The 32-year-old South African was born with a difference in sexual development (DSD) and has not been able to compete in her favorite distance of 800 meters since 2019, following the introduction of limits on testosterone levels for female athletes by World Athletics.
Semenya has challenged that rule and, although her case was rejected in the Court of Arbitration for Sport and in the Swiss Federal Court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) considered in July that the Swiss justice system had violated her human rights.
Now that the case heads to the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR for a final ruling, Semenya declared that she is focused on “winning battles against the authorities” rather than competing, and that next summer’s Paris Olympics are not in her plans. plans.
“For me, if you are a woman, you are a woman,” Semenya stressed in an interview with the British network’s ‘BBC Breakfast’ program. “It doesn’t matter what differences you have. I have realized that I want to live my life and fight for what I think and believe in myself. I know that I am a woman and everything that comes with it has to be accepted,” she added.
The South African knows that she is “different.” “I don’t care about medical terms or what they tell me. Being born without a uterus or without internal testicles, that doesn’t make me less of a woman. These are the differences I was born with and I’m going to accept them. I’m not going to be ashamed for being different, I’m different and special and I feel very good about it,” he remarked.
Semenya, who won Olympic gold in the 800 meters in 2012 and 2016 and is a three-time world champion over the same distance, said last week that she had achieved everything she wanted on the track and is now focused on her battle with the sports authorities and in “fighting against injustice, for inclusion and diversity.”