Semenya mobbed by fans on return to South Africa

Posted: Tuesday 25th August 2009 | 13:38

CONTROVERSIAL world champion Caster Semenya has arrived home in South Africa to a hero's welcome.

TRAUMATISED: Caster Semenya stayed silent on her return to South Africa

Hundreds turned out at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg to greet the 800m gold medallist embroiled in a gender testing row.

Singing and dancing fans rallied behind Semenya and waved placards with messages such as "Our gold girl" and "Our first lady of sport."

Semenya stayed silent at a press conference at the airport also attended by the athlete's father and grandmother, despite reports that preliminary medical tests have shown the 18-year-old had three times the normal female level of testosterone in her body.

"She's not going to talk to you, she has been traumatised," said Leonard Chuene, Athletics South Africa president.

"Can you imagine, she has faced a hostile media - I am traumatised myself."

Chuene brushed aside claims that Dr Ekkart Arbeit - a former East German coach who was accused by a female athlete of giving her so many steroids she was forced to undergo a sex-change operation and live the rest of her life as a man - is the South African head coach.

"Arbeit was not in the picture. Arbeit does not work with these girls. Arbeit was never part and parcel of this little girl, so there was no way Arbeit was going to be injecting her," said Chuene, who refused to confirm whether he will respect the outcome of the gender test ordered by the IAAF.

"Let's cross that bridge when we come to it."

Semenya and South Africa's other medal winning athletes, men's 800m champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi and long jump silver medallist Khotoso Mokoena are due to meet South African president Jacob Zuma in Pretoria this afternoon.

Comments

Related paper - East Germany's monstrous doping program

Submitted by Alessandra (not verified) on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 22:22.

This is the contextual background for Ekkart Arbeit.

For a magnificent read on the subject:

http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/content/full/43/7/1262

Hormonal doping and androgenization of athletes: a secret program of the German Democratic Republic government

Werner W. Franke1,a and Brigitte Berendonk2

1 Division of Cell Biology/0110, German Cancer Research Center, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany.

2 Hölderlin High School, Heidelberg, Germany.

Abstract

Several classified documents saved after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1990 describe the promotion by the government of the use of drugs, notably androgenic steroids, in high-performance sports (doping). Top-secret doctoral theses, scientific reports, progress reports of grants, proceedings from symposia of experts, and reports of physicians and scientists who served as unofficial collaborators for the Ministry for State Security ("Stasi") reveal that from 1966 on, hundreds of physicians and scientists, including top-ranking professors, performed doping research and administered prescription drugs as well as unapproved experimental drug preparations. Several thousand athletes were treated with androgens every year, including minors of each sex. Special emphasis was placed on administering androgens to women and adolescent girls because this practice proved to be particularly effective for sports performance. Damaging side effects were recorded, some of which required surgical or medical intervention. In addition, several prominent scientists and sports physicians of the GDR contributed to the development of methods of drug administration that would evade detection by international doping controls.