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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

All that glisters is not gold

Was it the lure of gold for a country that has never produced an individual track world champion before, or total ignorance of issue management that clouded Athletics South Africa’s (ASA) judgement?

ASA’s handling of the gender verification tests of the South African runner Caster Semenya, who won gold in the women's 800m at the World Athletics Championships in August, ended in suspensions and recriminations.

The Board of ASA and its president, Leonard Chuene, were suspended by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee in the wake of the Semenya scandal that also damaged relations between ASA and the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF).



The issue escalated into a crisis.




Instead of acknowledging the concerns about Semenya’s gender and identifying issues that may develop, ASA decided to ignore them.

Rather than being in charge and setting priorities for how to address the issue, they found themselves back tracking, trying to cover up and eventually being exposed.

Had they analysed the consequences and its possible repercussions proactively, all involved (the athlete, the organisation and the country) would not have found themselves embroiled in a crisis.

1 comment:

  1. Sports competition follows the rule of all participants in the equal, fair and reasonable conditions to compete. From my personal view, i think it is not fair because she is hermaphrodite, who are more outbreaks of force, and have more developed muscle structure. However, her body is nature, she cannot decide whatever she like it or not. There should some law to respect this kind of people' right. They are really suffering from varies rumor.

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