Man, I sincerely hope this story is not true, or is an exaggeration or an overenthusiastic reporter’s account. Because if it IS true, it is worse than betrayal by AK of the athletes it is supposed to represent. How on earth can the federation *pre-emptively* pull out athletes from international competition because we are afraid that they will be subjected to tests to (dis)prove their hypoandrogenism? As Maximilla Imali, one of the athletes says, ‘It is a scheme to demoralise us. I am not ready to quit athletics, nor to take...suppressant treatment. I am so happy the way God made me to be.’
I’m boiling mad, for many reasons. First, we should be standing with Caster Semenya, Margaret Wambui Nyairera and any other woman who is insulted viciously for physical attributes they did not choose. The stupid among us have enjoyed calling Semenya names for ten years, but you must now grow up. Caster has been subjected to the most brutal bullying any athlete has faced in probably half a century, all for daring to want to compete and win. The arguments are simple - if you’re going to be this unpleasant to Caster because of her natural athletes, then do the same to seven-footer basketballers, or mesomorphic front-row rugby players. Caster is talented, full stop.
But back to AK’s own goal. The federation may think that this is a simple matter of avoiding controversy in Japan. But they do not realise that they are opening the door for the progressive bullying of *all* our athletes. It will start with Caster, Wambui, Maximilla and Makena. But what will stop the IAAF and envious federations from calling into question the femininity of *any* athlete who dares win against the wealthier countries? After all, all some racist British newspaper needs to do is insinuate that one of ours is ‘not quite a woman’, because perhaps she has narrow hips, or short hair, or not-quite-rosy cheeks. Then that victory - at the Olympics or World Championships or Diamond League - will be tagged with an asterisk until these glorious women are subjected to some degraded test (innocently dubbed by the IAAF as one ‘just to be sure’). We’ll be back to where we were thirty years ago, where African women were nowhere to be seen and the sports were dominated by the Europeans.
What does that do to a supremely talented girl? She may have lived half her life with people callously whispering behind her back, because she beat all the girls (and probably half the boys) at school sports days. She then becomes nationally and then globally competitive, and she now gets the Caster treatment in front of a global television audience. Many of our girls will, rightfully, decide that they don’t need that in their lives. But there may be a few who, when subjected to this, will not be that mentally strong. It will destroy them.
And who says this needs to stop with our women athletes? Soon the ‘scientific’ explanations that black athletes are not quite talented; that our dominance of every track event from the sprints to the marathon is due to some innate talent (whether some beastly musculature or the dubious benefits of altitude) will be back with a bang. Soon, those small races in tiny towns in tiny countries, which ban African athletes ‘to give locals a chance’ will be the template for continental and global races. Africans, please keep off the Olympics because your ‘natural’ talents are unfair. Jamaicans, please keep off the World Championships because you’re making us look bad. Unless, of course, you take this little pill to equalise the situation.
Sorry, Athletics Kenya. Stand up for what is right. Indians took over world cricket because the centre of gravity had moved decisively to the subcontinent. Yet Africa, where all of the world’s athletic talent resides in all its glory, is prepared to be bullied by a small-minded IAAF. STAND YOUR GROUND. Take Maximilla and Makena to Japan. If the IAAF bully them *in any way*, point them to a bonsai tree and tell them to go and hug it.
I’m boiling mad, for many reasons. First, we should be standing with Caster Semenya, Margaret Wambui Nyairera and any other woman who is insulted viciously for physical attributes they did not choose. The stupid among us have enjoyed calling Semenya names for ten years, but you must now grow up. Caster has been subjected to the most brutal bullying any athlete has faced in probably half a century, all for daring to want to compete and win. The arguments are simple - if you’re going to be this unpleasant to Caster because of her natural athletes, then do the same to seven-footer basketballers, or mesomorphic front-row rugby players. Caster is talented, full stop.
But back to AK’s own goal. The federation may think that this is a simple matter of avoiding controversy in Japan. But they do not realise that they are opening the door for the progressive bullying of *all* our athletes. It will start with Caster, Wambui, Maximilla and Makena. But what will stop the IAAF and envious federations from calling into question the femininity of *any* athlete who dares win against the wealthier countries? After all, all some racist British newspaper needs to do is insinuate that one of ours is ‘not quite a woman’, because perhaps she has narrow hips, or short hair, or not-quite-rosy cheeks. Then that victory - at the Olympics or World Championships or Diamond League - will be tagged with an asterisk until these glorious women are subjected to some degraded test (innocently dubbed by the IAAF as one ‘just to be sure’). We’ll be back to where we were thirty years ago, where African women were nowhere to be seen and the sports were dominated by the Europeans.
What does that do to a supremely talented girl? She may have lived half her life with people callously whispering behind her back, because she beat all the girls (and probably half the boys) at school sports days. She then becomes nationally and then globally competitive, and she now gets the Caster treatment in front of a global television audience. Many of our girls will, rightfully, decide that they don’t need that in their lives. But there may be a few who, when subjected to this, will not be that mentally strong. It will destroy them.
And who says this needs to stop with our women athletes? Soon the ‘scientific’ explanations that black athletes are not quite talented; that our dominance of every track event from the sprints to the marathon is due to some innate talent (whether some beastly musculature or the dubious benefits of altitude) will be back with a bang. Soon, those small races in tiny towns in tiny countries, which ban African athletes ‘to give locals a chance’ will be the template for continental and global races. Africans, please keep off the Olympics because your ‘natural’ talents are unfair. Jamaicans, please keep off the World Championships because you’re making us look bad. Unless, of course, you take this little pill to equalise the situation.
Sorry, Athletics Kenya. Stand up for what is right. Indians took over world cricket because the centre of gravity had moved decisively to the subcontinent. Yet Africa, where all of the world’s athletic talent resides in all its glory, is prepared to be bullied by a small-minded IAAF. STAND YOUR GROUND. Take Maximilla and Makena to Japan. If the IAAF bully them *in any way*, point them to a bonsai tree and tell them to go and hug it.
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