Even though South African teenager Caster Semenya dominated the women's 800-meter race at the World Championships this week, there's a shadow over her win. Three weeks ago the International Federation asked South African track and field authorities to conduct a gender test on Semenya to make sure she is female. According to authorities, she seemingly popped out of nowhere posting a world-leading time of 1:56.72 at the African junior championships in Maruitius last month according to the Associated Press. Plus her muscular build and her deep voice had authorities questioning her gender.

"We entered Caster as a woman and we want to keep it that way," South Africa team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane told the Associated Press. "Our conscience is clear in terms of Caster. We have no reservations at all about that."

Semenya's father and grandmother came to the 18-year old's defense amid the allegations that she could be male.

"She is my little girl. ... I raised her and I have never doubted her gender," her father Jacob told a Sowetan newspaper. "She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times."

"What can I do when they call her a man, when she's really not a man? It is God who made her look that way," Semenya's grandmother Maputhi Sekgala told the South African daily The Times.

The gender test is still ongoing and requires input from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender. If it is found that she was born a male, Semenya could be stripped of her medals.





Quibian Salazar-Moreno covers the sports world for Black Voices. He's a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado that also covers the video game industry, iPhone games world, the music industry and a bunch of other things. Follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/q_salazar