There is nothing new or mediocre in bowing to the superiority of Caster Semenya. In winning 1,500m gold at the Commonwealth Games – a personal best to boot – Semenya once again left the rest of the women chasing in vain, including Ciara Mageean.
Semenya's winning time of 4:00.71 also broke both the Commonwealth Games and the South African record, the latter having stood to Zola Budd since 1984; though still an 800m specialist, there was no stopping Semenya once she hit the front entering the final 200m, before landing her first major 1,500m title.
Mageean was a good position at that stage, sitting in fifth, only to lose ground on that final run to finish 13th, clocking 4:07.78 – that time still her fastest 1,500m delivered at a major championships.
Semenya will be back on the track later this week looking to add the 800m title, the distance she is already the two-time Olympic champion, also defending world champion.
Mageean, the athletics captain of the Northern Ireland team, made the final as a fastest loser, and declared herself “proud” of her performance. She put herself at the front from the start, sitting in fourth at 800m, passed in 2:10.81.
Once Semenya hit the front however it was race over: Kenya's Beatrice Chepkoech (4:03.09) held on for silver, while Welsh athlete Melissa Courtney claimed an unexpected bronze, who only took up running as training for her competitive swimming career.
“I’m in complete shock, I can’t believe I ran that fast,” said Courtney, who clocked 4:03.44.
Semenya will now turn her sights to her shorter specialist distance, in which she has hinted at an attempt on Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world record of 1:53.28, which has stood to the former Czechoslovakian since 1983 – the still longest standing record in the books, male or female, and widely considered to be the result of her artificially high testosterone levels and a relic of the old Eastern Bloc systematic doping
The IAAF, meanwhile, are still awaiting notification of their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), who in 2015 suspended the ruling on intersex athletes and hyperandrogenism, which meant all intersex athletes were free to compete without undergoing hormone treatment to bring their testosterone levels within what is considered normal female range.
