What if Semenya passes the gender test and is declared "entirerly female?"

Then I would like to see the training that took her from 2:11 to 1:55 within one year's time.

Um, uh, that will mean she is a woman. Class dismissed.

wont happen wrote:

Then I would like to see the training that took her from 2:11 to 1:55 within one year's time.

Assuming she's a she, then the drop from 2:11 to 1:55 shouldn't be ALL that impressive. She is just 18 after all. Was she training a lot prior to one year ago? Maturity and increased training can do a lot for a runner at that age.

But, she could be a he, or she could be using some drugs. Who knows right now? I don't.

If they let Mutola run as a woman, I don't see why they shouldn't let this dude.

Does anyone remember Jelimo??? You know that women who was absolutely unstoppable for an entire year and DNF'd at worlds this year? I would be a bit more conservative about progressions

Flagpole wrote:Assuming she's a she, then the drop from 2:11 to 1:55 shouldn't be ALL that impressive.

Has someone hijacked your screen name--again? Are you KIDDING me? Shouldn't be ALL that impressive??!! Considering it's never been done in human history, I'd say it SHOULD be ALL that impressive. And for the record, it was actually 2:08--that we know of--to 1:55 in one year, but still...

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Not even the bear embraced her. Even the bear knows!

obviously, she's a Bantu hermaphrodite relatively common in SA. Most ~2/3 are brought up as male, despite having "ambiguous genitalia" which is outwardly female.

If she's 18 and majorly talented and had never really trained before, then gonig from 2:08 to 1:55 is not out of the realm of believability. I had a high school team mate that ran track for the hell of it his Sr year. Went from ~2:20 in the first meet to State champion in FL with a 1:53. That was over the course of a season for an 18 year old boy. Now...............obviously this is for an 18 year old boy, so take all comments with this in mind.

Keyword being "HIS" senior year. Thet's the progression of dudes. No two ways about it...

keyword wrote:

Keyword being "HIS" senior year. Thet's the progression of dudes. No two ways about it...

which is exactly the point of the last sentence in my previous post. I am in the camp of not believing Semenya has no advantage. That's a lot of negatives....I think Semenya has some advantages.

wont happen wrote:

Flagpole wrote:Assuming she's a she, then the drop from 2:11 to 1:55 shouldn't be ALL that impressive.

Has someone hijacked your screen name--again? Are you KIDDING me? Shouldn't be ALL that impressive??!! Considering it's never been done in human history, I'd say it SHOULD be ALL that impressive. And for the record, it was actually 2:08--that we know of--to 1:55 in one year, but still...

Exhibit A:

http://www.youtube.com/v/CJfbSUquSXc

Exhibit B:

http://www.youtube.com/v/DwWI7E9IwAs

Not even the bear embraced her. Even the bear knows!

Sure it has! There was a kid in my conference in high school who ran 2:07 as a junior and got down to...wait for it...1:55 as a senior. Surely he's not the only one to drop 12 seconds or so in an 800 in a year.

But remember, I said ASSUMING she's really a woman and hasn't used PEDs. IF she is a man or has been using PEDs, then she's just a cheater. Her progression over the last year while impressive, is not out of the realm of possibility for a NEW runner.

Finally the tainted record by Kratochvilova will be history!

yyy wrote:

Finally the tainted record by Kratochvilova will be history!

Aaaaaahhhhhhahahahahhahahaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

wont happen wrote:

Then I would like to see the training that took her from 2:11 to 1:55 within one year's time.

This is not that remarkable. Lots of college kids do this when they start training seriously.

FP,

Do you really need me to point out that it's never been done BY A FEMALE? Everyone knows some bloke on their block who went from 2:20 to 1:53. I'm talking about blokettes, here. Gah!

Sememya is not female.

wont happen wrote:

FP,

Do you really need me to point out that it's never been done BY A FEMALE? Everyone knows some bloke on their block who went from 2:20 to 1:53. I'm talking about blokettes, here. Gah!

The only difference there is that for a woman 1:55 is world class, but if you've got a male who can get from 2:07 or so to 1:55 in one year and that is his ceiling, then gender shouldn't matter in this case. It's a nice improvement, but that in and of itself doesn't prove to me that she's a he or that she's using PEDs. We've seen big performance jumps before from world class athletes who weren't cheating.

She looks like a he and sounds like a he and runs like a he. I'll wait for the test to tell me one way or the other. I've certainly seen men who look like women and women who look like men in my day.

Flagpole wrote:The only difference there is that for a woman 1:55 is world class, but if you've got a male who can get from 2:07 or so to 1:55 in one year and that is his ceiling, then gender shouldn't matter in this case.

WTF? Do you even follow athletics? So if there is a male who's gone from 11.6 one season to 10.6 the next in the 100m, should be no big deal if a female does the same thing then, eh? The only difference is that for the female, the 10.6 just happens to be world class. No biggie, right?

Gender so painfully DOES matter in this case, as being male is what allowed for such an improvement in the first place.

To recap: show me ONE female, anywhere, who has gone from 2:08 to 1:55 in ONE FRICKIN' YEAR. It has not happened.

THIS is why I say that if she does "pass" the gender test, I wanna see the training behind her.

All this discussion is fine, but in the end they will do the gender test and that will sort it out. It is just like trying to decide who is eligible to be champion of a particular age group or weight class. They verify the person's age or weight, and then take it from there.

There may be people who are 39 years, 360 days old wanting to go for a master's record. They're not allowed in. The guy born one week earlier is.

There may be somebody who weighs 120.2 lbs. wanting to wrestle in the under-120 weight class. He's not and the guy who weights 119.9 lbs. is.

And in fact, the master's runner who is 40 years and 2 days old is often the one best positioned to set the world record, just like the wrestler who is 0.1 lbs under the weight limit is best positioned to be world champion.

What is bothering people about all of this is, being women's world champion has never been thought to be a matter of being as close to male as possible. In some senses it is, ie a girl with huge breasts is never going to be world champ in a marathon event. But the top female athletes don't necessarily look male by any means just because they have relatively small breasts and narrow hips; they still have lots of other feminine features. Until Semenya came along. Arguably Mutola also. Maybe others, I don't know.

The bottom line is: nobody criticizes the 119.9 lb wrestler for choosing to compete in the lower weight class. He steps on the scale, gets his weight, and then registers for the tournament accordingly. Semenya will do the analogous thing. The fact this was not handled before Semenya entered the IAAF champs is the fault of the IAAF. In essence they forgot to bring the metaphorical 'scale.' It would have been polite and classy of SAA to call it to their attention, but it's not the former's responsibility.