October 17 - Caster Semenya (pictured), the world 800 metres champion, is set to take university exams despite the row over her gender, her father said, contradicting earlier reports she was too traumatised to study.

 

Jacob Semenya said that his 18-year-old daughter, a first year sports science student at the University of Pretoria, planned to sit her exams as planned.

 

He said: "She's all right, I was with her this morning."

 

Semenya's coach, Michael Seme, had claimed that he suspected the trauma of the controversy led her to request a test delay.

 

Jacob Semenya denied that.

 

He said: "They can say what ever they want to say, but the truth will always be the truth."

 

Semenya won the world title in Berlin in August but the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has announced it had ordered gender tests and it is still waiting for the experts' verdict on whether she can continue competing as a woman.

 

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Nelson Mandela's former wife and now a prominent African National Congress member who is on a committee formed by the governing party to support Semenya, also said that she was planning to sit her exams.

 

Madikizela-Mandela said: "She says she is very happy with herself, she has overcome this particular hurdle she was going through.

 

"Now she is fit to write her exams."

 

The IAAF has been criticised in South Africa and abroad for publicly acknowledging tests had been ordered and the ANC's Semenya committee has claimed that they should be voided, claiming that the world governing body did not follow its own procedures.

 

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu also called on the IAAF to apologise, and criticised South African track officials for their role.
 

Leonard Chuene, the President of Athletics South Africa (ASA), has admitted that he knew gender tests had been conducted on Semenya before Berlin but he had lied about them to protect her.

 

 

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