Semenya the real deal in women's 800m

IT WOULDN’T be a proper World Championships if there wasn’t some talk about failed fitness tests or else failed doping tests. However, the talk in Berlin for much of yesterday was of failed gender tests. Unfairly or otherwise, Caster Semenya didn’t let any of that get in the way of winning the 800 metres. The women’s 800 metres, that is.

Earlier this summer the IAAF conducted a series of tests on the 18-year-old South African, including physical checks and genetic screening, to confirm she was indeed 100 per cent female. IAAF rules state that competitors must be entirely female to compete in women’s races, although some people are born with a mixture of chromosomes and display both male and female characteristics. The results of some of those tests have still to be released.

The officials have not barred her from the race and Semenya showed up last night for the 800 metres, and quickly went about winning it in the most convincing manner possible. Leading practically every step of the way, she cruised home in a personal best and world-leading 1:55.45. For the women’s 800 metres, that is. She was over two seconds clear of Kenya’s reigning champion Janeth Jepkosgei, who ran a season’s best of 1:57.90, while Britain’s Jenny Meadows ran great to take the bronze in 1:57.93.

Semenya passed through the mixed zone without commenting while the second and third didn’t comment either. It’s an unfortunate element to the sport, particularly when a new athlete suddenly arrives on the scene with the extraordinary physique and speed of Semenya. Anyway, at 18, she clearly has more to come, and may soon challenge the world record of 1:53.28.

If Kenya were happy enough with the silver medal there, they were kicking themselves after the final of the men’s 1,500 metres. Believe it or not, they’ve yet to officially win gold in the event, although Youssef Saad Kamel from Bahrain, the mile artist previously known as Gregory Konchellah, was actually born and raised in the great Rift Valley.

Kamel is also the son of Kenya’s two-time World 800-metre winner Billy Konchellah, and now 26, declared for the Asian country in 2003. Kenya must be wishing they never let him go – as he delivered a beautifully tactical race to win gold in 3:35.93.

Almost as annoying for Kenya is the fact that their two big hopes were run out of the medals, with Olympic champion Asbel Kiprop leaving himself with a mountain to climb in the last 100 metres, and only getting up to fourth in 3:36.47, while Augustine Choge, the world leader this year, was fifth in 3:36.53. Ethiopian Deresse Mekennon got up for the silver in 3:36.01, while another former Kenyan and 2007 champion Bernard Lagat, now 34, ran well to take the bronze in 3:36.20.