Cast Aside

A new ruling on gender eligibility appears targeted.

- Tim Layden

On the last night of track and field competition at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Caster Semenya of South Africa, then 25, won the gold medal with a dominant performance in the 800 meters (below, right). This was not a surprise. Semenya had been the world’s best women’s half-miler in the months leading to the Games, and for much of the previous eight years, since winning the gold medal at the ’09 World Championships as an 18-yearold. She had also been constantly at the centre of controversy regarding issues of gender, science and performance (and, by extension, privacy and social activism).