Keely Hodgkinson

[hholiday]

Superstar athlete Keely is back on the track after injury and is being lauded for running the ninth-fastest 800m by any woman, ever. Only it appears it was even better than that, because look at this line from The Times:

It was like she has never been away. After more than a year on the sidelines with injury, Keely Hodgkinson returned to action in Poland with a display infused with star quality. How good was it? Well, her winning time of 1 minute 54.74 seconds in her first race since claiming her Olympic 800m gold was the best by anyone this year, a meeting record and the ninth fastest ever. Only Caster Semenya, and Hodgkinson herself, have run faster in the event in 17 years.

There no way cheating male Caster should be allowed to retain the medals and results he stole from women down the years and there’s certainly no way today’s athletes should be forced to compete with a male athlete’s records. Athletics bodies should have the courage to wipe Semenya’s results. And journalists should have the courage to refer to Keely as the fastest woman in her event in 17 years, bar none.

I don’t believe that Caster should retain medals and results; however I’d like to know more about organised grift by sporting scouts in this area. I don’t have references (I wish I did) but I’ve read somewhere that in the past, due to the rules, athletic males with dsds were actively sought out for competitive sport in countries where it was less likely that genetic testing was done on children where there was some ambiguity. Caster didn’t do any of it in a vacuum.

That said, yes, journalists should also be much more courageous here.

There are even faster times set by East European drug cheats 40 years sgo

They still haven’t given Sharron Davies her Olympic gold from 1980 even though the woman who beat her (Petra Schneider) has said that she was doped at the time. (And now has pretty horrific health problems as a result of what was done to her.)

If they’re not going to be setting the records straight the press should at least acknowledge the facts - as clearly the facts were not as all thought at the time. And clearly Keely is a true superstar.

a super come back from Keely. A legendary athlete.

i don't totally agree that Semenya was "cheating" as such, Caster went along with the rules as they were at the time. but I certainly agree that the records need to be reset.

bluntly speaking, they used to allow men in the women's events.

in the 70s through early 90s they allowed pseudo-men, natal women who were approaching (the low end of) male performance standards as a result of being roided to the gills.

then in the 00s and 2010s they let in any men who had DSD's which made them look (kinda) female.

and now the rules have changed.

there's a clear precedent for wiping out records which preceded a rule change - by the mid 80s, top level javelin throwing had a couple of serious problems - the old style javelin would land flat too often, and also the very best men were starting to throw it so far that spectators might be in danger. as it happened, most of the very longest throws were by probable steroid cheats. so they changed the spec, replacing it with a new model which amongst other things didn't travel as far. so all world records set with the old spec were wiped from the books. as should happen to all women's records set by men.

It shouldn’t be beyond the abilities of modern computer systems to retain the original data but have a parallel set showing the true results for un-doped females, and issue the correct medals to the women who lost out due to either nations having a doping policy or males with DSDs being scouted. That might be more productive than debating whether athletes such as Semenya knowingly cheated or not - just sidestep it.

I also disagree Semenya was cheating. She was allowed to compete under the rules at the time. People seem to have forgotten it was a different landscape to the one we live in now and it was fairly rare for anyone to question her participation back then.

Drugs cheating is different as it was against the rules as they were then. You can't go retrospectively changing the rules and taking away medals because society's understanding has developed. All kinds of medal removals would then have to be considered.

here's the javelin world record, including ones with the old model.

https://tinyurl.com/p327z9aw

Any male person who chooses to participate in female sport’s categories knowing they are a male person is worthy of being called a cheat.

To be very generous, Semenya knew from the time of the first sex test that Semenya was a male person. I believe that was around 2009, yet chose to continue. I expect Semenya knew from puberty considering we have the self published photographs of Semenya swimming in trunks only at the beach with school mates.

Are we to believe that because the rules allowed cheating to occur, there should be no labelling of the deliberate participation after the
confirmation of male puberty as cheating?

Female athletes were shamed if they questioned Semenya’s participation. Female athletes were told that they had no say even though around 80+% of them wanted sex testing to stay when polled back in the late 1990’s.

They tried to say that sex testing should remain and that these male athletes had advantages but female athletes, their coaches were all ignored. All because a group campaigned that it was against these male athlete’s humanity and dignity to be tested. That is how we got where we are today.

I also want to point out that in 2009, Semenya was a first year student in a bachelor of sports science at Pretoria university and has since got a post doctorate in sports science in 2021.

I am yet to be convinced that Semenya wasn’t ’cheating’. What is the difference between ‘cheating’ at sport and ‘cheating the system’? Semenya made very deliberate choices.

This is the coach who has been said to have scouted for athletes in South Africa, including Caster Semenya.

Ekkart Arbeit is the sports coach who was coaching the East German women, then came to Athletics Australia in the late 90s ( 1997?) in lead up to Sydney 2000 Olympics to coach the women but they rescinded his contract in 1998. Arbeit eventually ended up as the coach for South Africa in the mid 2000s.

He is a testosterone expert.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-04-22/olympic-champion-hires-former-east-german-drug/1841668

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/further-checks-on-coach-ordered-1.114105

and this might help

HISTORY OF SEX TESTING IN THE OLYMPICS AND THE GROUP WHO SUCCESSFULLY CAMPAIGNED TO HAVE SEX TESTING DROPPED

www.nature.com/articles/gim2000258.pdf?origin=ppub&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_campaign=CONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PHSS_ALWYS_DEEPLINK&utm_content=textlink&utm_term=PID100045542&CJEVENT=f4d4c8630a0411ed831b01a80a1c0e11

Louis J. Elsas ,MD' , Arne Ljungqvist, MD', Malcolm A. Ferguson-Smith, MA,FRCP, JoeLeigh Simpson, MD', Myron Genel, MD5, Alison S. Carlson ,BA, Elizabeth Ferris, MBBS', Albert de la Chapelle, MD, Anke A. Ehrhardt, phD

"On-site gender verification has since been found to be highly discriminatory, and the cause of emotional trauma and social stigmatization for many females with problems of intersex who have been screened out from competition. Despite compelling evidence for the lack of scientific merit for chromosome-based screening for gender, as well as its functional and ethical inconsistencies, the IOC persisted in its policy for 30 years."

"The coauthors of this manuscript have worked with some success to rescind this policy through educating athletes and sports governors regarding the psychological and physical nature of sexual differentiation, and the inequities of genetic sex testing."

and then in 2004 IOC announcement that they would allow males to compete with surgical ‘reassignment’.

https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-approves-consensus-with-regard-to-athletes-who-have-changed-sex-1

The ‘committee’ for this was: ( note, some of these people also were involved in the stopping of sex testing based on the indignity for male people with DSDs, though they refer to them as women as per the Nature article upthread Gender verification of female athletes)

Prof. Arne Ljungqvist (SWE) - Prof. Odile Cohen-Haguenauer (FRA) - Prof. Myron Genel (USA) - Prof. Joe Leigh Simpson (USA) - Prof. Martin Ritzen (SWE) - Prof. Marc Fellous (FRA) - Dr Patrick Schamasch (FRA)

The group recommends that individuals undergoing sex reassignment from male to female after puberty (and vice versa) be eligible for participation in female or male competitions, respectively, under the following conditions:
-Surgical anatomical changes have been completed, including external genitalia changes and gonadectomy
-Legal recognition of their assigned sex has been conferred by the appropriate official authorities
-Hormonal therapy appropriate for the assigned sex has been administered in a verifiable manner and for a sufficient length of time to minimise gender-related advantages in sport competitions.
In the opinion of the group, eligibility should begin no sooner than two years after gonadectomy.

It is understood that a confidential case-by-case evaluation will occur.
In the event that the gender of a competing athlete is questioned, the medical delegate (or equivalent) of the relevant sporting body shall have the authority to take all appropriate measures for the determination of the gender of a competitor.

Some people were very clear that they believed that male people should be able to compete with female people.

Just reread that. That seems either a brain glitch - Semenya has a post grad diploma. Not doctorate. I was sure I typed diploma. Sorry about that.

Thank you for that very detailed info @Helleofabore. Clearly a large number of people colluded with the athletes in this.

caster could have easily put the record straight but he did not.

public record is important as this is where people get their “facts.”

Yes, thanks, Helleofabore, you always come up with the goods!

OrangeSmoke · Today 12:55

I also disagree Semenya was cheating. She was allowed to compete under the rules at the time.

He; he's male, a man, a he, a him.

I lost all sympathy for Caster when he told Lynsey Sharp, whose Olympic medal he stole, she needed to bite her tongue and train harder. There is nothing Lynsey, an actual woman, could have done to catch Caster and the other two men on the track that day, although her effort was phenomenal. No amount of training will give a woman the speed and strength of an average man and telling a woman she needs to bite her tongue only betrays caster’s misogyny.

And Caster has always known he was - if not a male - not a typical female. As a child, his sisters did the housework while caster could run around with the other boys. I’m not saying I can’t see why he and others in his position seize the opportunity presented by shady talent scouts and unscrupulous sports bodies. But it is, nevertheless, cheating.

If a flawed law allows you to do something that you know is unethical, does that mean you are not being unethical if you take advantage of that law?

What about if you studied ethics at university as well as just taking advantage of the flawed law? Just as acceptable or less acceptable?