New Delhi: The world is outraged at South African athlete Caster Semenya's very gender test. Especially, because the test was made public before the results are out.
Semenya is the new women's 800 m world champion.
"Absolutely dreadful", "highly unfair" and "embarrassing to the athlete" were just some of the reactions in Berlin where the World Athletic Championships are being held.
The results of the gender test could take several days, but the newly crowned 800m world champion says she could not care less.
The South African athlete said: "If I win, I win. If I come second, yeah, it would be a surprise. If I go there, top five, maybe top three."
It was Semeya's unnaturally deep voice among other things that drew the attention of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF).
The sports' world governing body also took notice of 18-year-old Semenya because she improved on her personal best by an astounding seven seconds in just nine months. That feat prompted the request for a gender test.
That would have been par for the course had the news suddenly not been made public just a day before Semenya was due to run in the 800m final at the World Championships. She decimated the field and won by a substantial margin further fuelling rumours.
Her very public humiliation has drawn sharp criticism across the world, but nowhere more fiercely than back home in her native South Africa.
Leonard Chuene , president, Athletics South Africa said: "I am not going to let that girl be humiliated in the manner that she was humiliated because she has not committed a crime whatsoever. Her crime was to be born the way she is born. And now people are not happy and on that basis she is isolated like a leper, like she has got a disease that will affect other people and I don't think it's proper."
The IAAF has been caught in a position that's embarrassing, though substantially less so than Semenya's plight. Why was this news made public before the test results were even known? The body was quick to say that the benefit of the doubt is with the athlete, but the damage has been done.
There is a very recent parallel to be drawn with the case of Santhi Soundarajan, the Indian 800m runner who was stripped of her silver at the Doha Asiad after failing a gender test. But even that news emerged after she failed the test.
Caster Semenya, unfortunately, has not been extended even that courtesy.