An angry South Africa rallied yesterday to the defence of Caster Semenya, the world 800 metres champion, and dismissed calls for gender tests as the product of stereotyping and racism.
"We condemn the motives of those who have made it their business to question her gender due to her physique and running style," the ruling African National Congress (ANC) said in a statement.
"Such comments can only serve to portray women as being weak. Caster is not the only woman athlete with a masculine build and the International Association of Athletics Federation should know better."
News media focused more on the 18-year-old sprinter's achievement in taking the title in Berlin on Wednesday night in 55.45sec than on the controversy surrounding questions of her gender.
However, politicians and sports bodies were united in their condemnation of the IAAF. Accusations of racism, never far from the surface in South Africa, were quick to emerge.
Leonard Chuene, president of the South African athletics federation, alleged that the young athlete was facing such intense scrutiny simply because she was African. "It would not be like that if it were some young girl from Europe," Chuene said. "If it was a white child, she would be sitting somewhere with a psychologist, but this is an African child."
The ANC Youth League described her as a "role model" for the country's youth and called the gender issue an insult to African women in general.
"It feeds into the commercial stereotypes of how a woman should look, their facial and physical appearance, as perpetuated by backward Eurocentric definition of beauty," a statement from the league said. "It is this culture which has forced many African women to starve themselves with the objective of reaching the model ramps of Paris and Milan."
That argument resonated with family and friends in her humble home in the rural village of Ga-Masehlong in Limpopo province in the far north of the country. Nkele, her 16-year-old sister, said: "People must stop calling her a man because we are proud of her."
Deborah Morolong, Semenya's friend, said: "I think they are saying these things out of jealously. It really hurts me when they say that about her."
Eric Modiba, headmaster of Nthema Secondary School, where she completed her education last year, told Beeld, the Afrikaner newspaper, that he was "very, very proud of her".
"She always had a strong physique," Modiba said. "She was a 'rough' girl and preferred playing with the boys."
Gender concerns
Intersex athletes
Sarah Gronert (tennis): was born with male and female genitalia but had the male genitalia removed three years ago. Was cleared to play on the women's professional circuit this year and is now ranked No 333. "There is no girl who can hit serves like that, not even Venus Williams," Schlomo Tzoref, coach of a beaten opponent, said of her.
Stella Walsh (athletics): American Polish immigrant who won gold in the Olympic 100 metres in 1932 and silver in 1936. Was killed when bystander in an armed robbery in 1980. The autopsy revealed she had both male and female genitalia.
Ewa Klobukowska (athletics): Polish sprinter who won bronze in the 1964 Olympic 100 metres and set the world record in 1965, but was then banned from competition in 1967 when she became the first Olympic athlete to fail a new chromosome test.
