Biography
Megan Ervin
March 26, 2013
Mokgadi Caster Semenya was born in GaMasehlong,
South Africa. People that live in the northernmost province of South Africa
call this area Limpopo. Limpopo translates to the middle of nowhere. Small
villages containing mud huts and small brick houses are all that makes Limpopo,
besides the wilderness. Growing up in a small village doesn't leave much to do,
therefore people around there turn to running. The Molejie Athletic Club is
made up of a group of teens who join together on a dirt road for practice. Most
of the teens walk half an hour through cornfields from their homes just to meet
for practice. Caster was among those teenagers. The cross-country runners train
through bushes that stretch for miles toward the mountains where thorns are a
hindrance for the runners, especially those who train barefoot. “They run on
loose stones, scraping them, making a wound, making a scar,” Sako, their
trainer said, “We can't stop and say we don't have running shoes, because we
don't have money. The parents don't have money. So what must we do? We just go
on.” Caster, along with her colleagues, is making her coach proud. Caster
Semenya is the girl known for putting the Molejie Club on records. Coach Sako
called Semenya “a natural” at running. Before Semenya had left for college, she
had won a medal in Pune, India, in 2008 at the Commonwealth Youth Games. Sako
always told Semenya to try her best. Sako announced, “By performing the best,
maybe good guys with big stomachs full of money will see her and then help her
with schooling and the likes. That is the motivation. And she always tried her
level best.” Semenya won another medal at the African Junior Athletics
Championships in Mauritius. This event qualified Semenya for the 2009 World
Championships in Berlin.Semenya won the 800 meter title in Berlin. Her win looked effortless. She moved with efficiency with an award-winning stride. "Even when we were training, I used to pair her with the males," Sako admitted. “I feel like she was too powerful for ladies.” After winning, Semenya was recorded by reporters. "Oh man, I don't know what to say. It's pretty good to win a gold medal and bring it home." Semenya’s voice was surprisingly manly. Jacob, Semenya's father even admits when talking to her on the telephone, you might mistake her for a male. Consequently, before Semenya received the gold medal on August 20th in Berlin, a reporter asked about a story concerning Semenya’s gender. The reporter heard a story that had been going around talking about how Semenya’s sex was uncertain and how she should undergo a gender test before racing. Even Semenya’s competitors were enraged after competing, “These kind of people should not run with us,” Elisa Cusma, of Italy, who came in sixth place said. “For me, she is not a woman. She is a man.” “Just look at her,” Mariya Savinova, of Russia, who finished in fifth place, said. Semenya is unmistakably muscular. Her body is distinctly manly. She even has a masculine jawline. “What I knew is that wherever we go, whenever she made her first appearance, people were somehow gossiping, saying, ‘No, no, she is not a girl,” Phineas Sako said, “It looks like a boy’ --that’s the right words--they used to say, ‘It looks like a boy.’ Some even asked me as a coach, and I would confirm: it’s a girl. At times, she’d get upset. But, eventually, she was just used to such things.” Many times Semenya would visit the restroom with a member of a competing team so that they could look at her private parts just so they would know she is a girl and then move on with the race. Sako’s English was fluent but rough, at times he would refer to Semenya as “he.” For example, “Caster was very free when he is in the male company,” Sako said. “I remember one day I asked her, ‘Why are you always in the company of men?’ He said, ‘No, man, I don’t have something to say to girls, they talks nonsense. They are always out of order.” Everyone talked about her from this day forward. Many raised questions from the public made the IOC investigate. After many convictions and assumptions made about her gender, Semenya was cleared to race again. Semenya even went on to carry the South African flag in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Caster Semenya's life story can teach us all a lesson. There will always be obstacles in life. You must never give up and always "try your level best."
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