Semenya criticises IOC president Kirsty Coventry
‘Her being a woman coming from Africa … it causes harm’
South Africa’s Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic 800m champion, said on Sunday that the International Olympic Committee’s reinstatement of gender verification tests for the 2028 Los Angeles Games was “a disrespect for women”.
The former hyperandrogenic athlete also expressed her disappointment that the measure was taken under the leadership of the new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.
“For me, personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how African women or women in the global south are affected by that, of course, it causes harm,” Semenya said during a press conference in Cape Town on the sidelines of a sporting competition.
