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Caster Semenya: Controversial South African runner accused of tanking race, but perhaps she just isn’t very fast

It is Caster Semenya's prerogative "not to discuss her hormones and ovaries with strangers," in Slate's June Thomas' phrasing. It has not done her a whit of good insofar as dousing the firestorm about her gender that erupted after she won the women's 800 metres at the IAAF world championships three years ago, Now the way she ran in her silver medal-winning race on Saturday has sparked accusations she's trying not to win, lest another she's-a-dude uproar begin. After staying in the back of the field before getting into a medal position, Semenya was accused of 'scandal avoidance'. Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden tweeted that just as she did while finishing second at last fall's worlds, Semenya "seemed oddly disengaged most of race and not tired at end," adding she "seemed aerobically relaxed 2 steps past finish line." Pretty much all the experts on site thought something was up.

BBC pundit Colin Jackson suggested the 21 year-old South African might have been reluctant to cause another media storm by winning, having been thrust into the spotlight at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin when a row over her gender overshadowed her victory.

Semenya ran a bizarre race at the Olympic Stadium, staying at the back of the field for the whole first circuit before finishing strongly to win silver in 1min 57.23sec.

She left her kick far too late to catch Russia's Mariya Savinova ...

"The plan was to win gold," she said "Unfortunately I made a wrong move and it was too late to kick." (The Telegraph)

How bizarre was it, really? Semenya's coach, Maria Mutola, pointed out before the event that Semenya never looks gassed after her runs. Semenya also ran at essentially at the same pace on Saturday that she did in her semifinal. The difference is that she was in a field with much faster women in the final than she did in her heat.

[Slideshow: Caster Semenya in London]

From Ross Tucker:

Maybe Semenya just didn't have the physiological capacity to run the race tactics people are accustomed to seeing. Maybe she was just not good enough to go with that early pace, and to respond to those surgest. Perhaps there is nothing to her performance other than that she runs a more even pace than her rivals.

A comparison between her semi-final and this race is interesting in this regard. In that semi, she went through 400m in just over 58 seconds, 600m in about 1:28 and then closed the final 200m in 29.5s, looking like she had something in reserve.

[Saturday], she went through 400m in 57.69s, then through 600m in about 1:27.1, and then closed in a touch over 30 seconds. My point is, her performance in the final was slightly faster at every stage than the semi, until she closed slower over the final 200m. To finish SLOWER than she did in the semi implies that she has little reserve and that she is closer to the limit than she looks. She wasn't actually that fast over the final 200m, it's just that everyone else was very slow!

It's possible that she doesn't have the speed (or psychological capacity and confidence) to be able to run a 56-second first lap, or a 28 second 200m split, regardless of when in the race it happens. If you look at Semenya, her running style is very laboured — the commentator described her as "lumbering" and that's about right. She lacks a knee lift, and her heel-flick is also very limited, so it is possible that she lacks the ability to change pace much, and so I have to put forward the possibility that she may not actually have the capacity to respond to surges, and maybe a 28-29-29-30 race breakdown is as fast as Semenya can go. (The Science of Sport)

[Video: Top three must-share Olympic moments]

This will never go away so long as Semenya demurs from discussing gender testing. The theorizing that she's trying not to win, though, seems a little too pat, too well-formed. Tucker's explanation seems more plausible. She might lack the proper running form to do the fast-slow-fast-slow tactics of great distance runners. It's too simplistic by half to put it this way, but any three-times-a-week jogger knows he/she will not be tired afterward after going at an even pace.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.

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