Caster Semenya returns to competition at the Oregon World Cup with an announced elimination

The South African Caster Semenya runs alone in Oregon, double Olympic champion, three world victories in the backpack.

She now does so relegated to the back, unable to keep up with the lead group since before they crossed the equator.

It's not a final, it's just the qualifying rounds, and it's strange to see her like this, so far from the first places that she subscribed to for so many years.

The explanation is simple: the test in which he participates, the 5,000 meters, is not his, nor does it adapt so well to his physical qualities, ideal for the 800m, an exercise of speed and power that ends in less than two minutes , and where he has reaped his successes.

In the twelve and a half laps of the track that is a 5,000m, on the other hand, he spends more than 15 minutes and sweats and suffers like other mortals.

But in this, unlike what happens with the 800m, they do allow him to take part without taking estrogen medication to reduce his testosterone to levels allowed by world athletics regulations, a therapy that he rejects as he considers it harmful to his health.

Semenya travels to Eugene after entering the list thanks to several losses, but knowing that she has no options to do anything other than succumb to the first change: she has the third worst mark of the 37 registered in the 5,000m, a distance that is too long.

The tartan proves it inclemently: on a very hot afternoon, above 30 degrees, he finishes his series in 15m 46.12s, 13th place out of 16 arrivals at the finish line, 54 seconds behind the first, the Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay.

In a championship that has significant media attention, Semenya, 31, could take the opportunity to complain.

Use that loudspeaker within her reach to criticize once again the rules that have interrupted her career because they exclude her from the definition of femininity imposed by the international athletics federation and supported by the IOC.

"My responsibility is to protect the integrity of women's sport," Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, which is considering toughening rules for intersex athletes like her who intend to compete in women's sport, said in June.

Semenya gave no clues as to her motivations for taking part in a previously lost race.

Whether it is love of athletics, nostalgia for the bib number, an economic issue or a way of telling the elite of world athletics that she is not giving up.

Or maybe all of them at once.

In her words at the end of the 5,000m, she avoided getting into controversies, and she said that her intention is to keep improving over the distance.

“I think it's great to be able to race here.

Just being able to finish the 5km for me is a blessing.

I am learning and I am willing to learn even more.

It was hot, I couldn't keep up, I tried to hold on as long as I could.

But it's part of the game."

Semenya, who maintains a legal dispute against the decision that has separated her from the 800m, the test in which she stands out, has been more explicit on other occasions.

Months ago she told the HBO network that at the age of 18 she offered to show her vagina to the judges of the international athletics federation to dispel doubts about her sex, and openly condemned last March the lack of consistency of the high echelons of athletics.

“So according to World Athletics and its members, I am a man when it comes to running 400m, 800m, 1500m and 1600m!

But a woman for the 100m, the 200m, and the long distance competitions,” she wrote on Twitter.

So according to World Athletics and it's members I'm a male when it comes to 400m, 800m, 1500m and 1600m!

Then a female in 100m,200m, and long distance events.😂🤣😂🤣 what a research.

What kind of a fool would do that?

Hai mathata man, bare sepela o di bone.👀

— Caster Semenya (@caster800m) March 26, 2022

Among her colleagues, there are those who have come out to support her after competing.

The American Karissa Schweizar, fifth in Semenya's series, considers the effort she is making to adapt to a new distance "inspiring", and the fact that, despite all the difficulties, she has been able to qualify to be running with the elite, although it is no longer alone for leaving its rivals behind, but on the contrary.

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