The two-time 800-meter Olympic champion Caster Semenya will also play football in the future. The 28-year-old joined the JVW Football Club, founded by South Africa's national footballer Janine van Wyk and intends to kick off in the semi-professional Sasol League from 2020 onwards. "I am grateful for this opportunity and appreciate the love and support I have already received from the team, and I am looking forward to this new journey," said the two-time World Champion.
"I am absolutely honored that she has chosen our club from all the other women's clubs in the world, and I was greeted and impressed by her first training session with the team on Tuesday, which definitely has all the basics," said Janine van Wyk.
South Africa's star runner played soccer every day during her youth and trained a lot. Semenya is also looking for a new challenge, as she can not defend her world title over 800 meters at the World Championships in Doha (27 September to 6 October).
At the end of July, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court had again allowed a controversial rule of the International Athletics Federation IAAF on the testosterone limit for middle-distance runners with intersex facilities. For the IAAF Semenya belongs to the "biologically male athletes with female gender identities". According to the IAAF rule, affected athletes would have to lower their genetically determined increased testosterone levels by taking hormones. Semenya rejects this strictly.