Caster Semenya Takes Fight for All Women to European Court of Human Rights All we ask for is to run free, for once and for all, as the strong and fearless women we are.
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Caster Semenya, a South African two-time Olympic gold medal champion has filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the World Athletics rule that aims to limit testosterone in female athletes. This is the third lawsuit the athlete has filed against the international governing body on this matter.
First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
Caster Semenya is no stranger to challenges. That comes with the territory of being a world-class athlete. Every day is a new challenge to be better, to run faster and to keep the competition at bay.
Those are aspects of her sport and life Semenya can control. But in Semenya’s case, the double Olympic 800m champion has the additional challenge of proving her legitimacy to compete as a female.
She is forced, by science and law, to prove that she belongs in the field of female athletes and is “categorised” female, regardless of how she identifies herself.
Semenya goes to European Court of Human Rights to challenge competition ban She has been barred from competing in races between 400m and a mile, unless she takes hormone-suppressing drugs. South Africa s 800 metres Olympic champion Caster Semenya (right) and her lawyer Gregory Nott (centre) leave a landmark hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in Lausanne, on 18 February 2019. Picture: AFP.
37 days ago
JOHANNESBURG - Caster Semenya said on Thursday she would take her case to the European Court of Human Rights. She said that she would ask them to find that Switzerland had failed in its obligations to protect her against the violation of her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.