The Home of South Africa's Gender Bending Runner
By Alex Perry Monday, Sep. 14, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1920289,00.htmlNine days after she won the women's 800-m world championship as an all but unknown in Berlin, Caster Semenya returned home to the plains of Limpopo, the northernmost province of South Africa, to escape the uproar that had enveloped her since she'd crossed the finish line. Semenya, 18, finds herself as not only one of the world's best athletes but also among its most controversial, under investigation by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) not for cheating or doping but for allegedly not being female. "Coach used to tell me there are many ways to kill a cat," she told a crowd outside her parents' thatched, mud-walled home. "I have killed it. That's why I am champion." More confusion was provided by Semenya's ancestors in the Sepedi tribe, who were in the habit of naming villages in the area after planets. Semenya's people, it turns out, come from Venus and Mars.
