South Africans unite behind gender row athlete

The 18-year-old athletic won a gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin on Wednesday. She was practically unknown until last month, when she set a new trace for the 800m in the African Junior Championships.

That achievement also destined she had enhanced her person best by seven seconds in less than nine months and she began to create a center of attention.

While the athlete, who comes from a rustic village in Limpopo area, has shrugged off speculation over her gender, others have taken the matter to heart. According to media reports, the IAAF is testing to see whether Semenya has an unusual genetic disorder that way she has female genitalia but boy chromosomes. This situation, known as intersex, commonly referred to as hermaphroditic.