Former world 200m champion and Olympic silver medalist, Caster Semenya, may not be through with all the troubles coming her way.
The world renowned athlete who faced a gender scare after winning her event a few years back seemed to be dogged with controversies that threaten her athletic laurel shelf. The gender issue made such international round that it the World Athletic Federation and South African government through its athletic body had to wade in.
This time, the injury to her left knee which seems to be threatening her participation at this year’s world athletics championships in Moscow is throwing up a lot more trouble for her. Not only is the healing of the knee her worry but also that she is being removed from the list of elite athletes benefitting from the funding support of South Africa’s Olympic committee. It is alleged that she has not been training.
“I’m back in training. I just need a couple of weeks to qualify. It’s my dream to win my title back. That is what I’m planning with the coach,” she said recently on South African television.
Her coach, a renowned world athlete in the 800metres, Maria Mutola, had, in acknowledging Semenya’s injury stated that ‘we might have to call off the season. I think that her wellbeing comes first. So in the next coming weeks we will sit down and make a decision.’
She pointed out that Semenya had to be in competitive form from training which has not been achieved yet hence the need to wait for an appropriate time to appraise the situation and take a decision. In effect, it might be too early to cut Semenya off a medal hope at the championships just about now.
“We have to consider if she can run good times. It would be unfair to expect her to run with some of the best athletes while she’s not 100 percent,” Mutola told the South African media.
“As far as her progress is concerned, we are a little bit behind, and we just have to see how things go.”
Mutolacriticisedthe decision to cut Semenya’s funding and had disagreed with the Olympic Committee’s assertion that she was not in training. She defended her ward staunchly stating that
‘she trains three times a week with me so I don’t understand what they mean by that. I think I’m content with her progress especially considering her injury problems.’
Semenya commenting on the funding cut poin related it to a possibility that: “Maybe it was because I did not run the South African season because of my injury. But being in a programme or not, I will still be the same athlete.”
