Did the IAAF Treat Caster Semenya Fairly?

There was an interesting article on the front page of the National Post sports section this morning about Caster Semenya of South Africa, winner of the gold medal in the women's 800 Metres at the 12th IAAF World Athletics Championships.

According to reports, the International Association of Athletics Federations was preparing to disqualify Semenya, 18, from future events after gender tests uncovered evidence that she has no womb or ovaries, and carries both male and female sexual organs, and is in fact a hermaphrodite. Click here to read the article.

This raises some interesting questions of debate that would be a great exercise to discuss with your Exercise Science students. Ask your students how they feel about the way the IAAF handled this situation.

1. Do they think the IAAF handled the situation properly?
2. Should she have been disqualified?
3. If the advantage that she has is due to biological and therefore natural causes, then isn't it the same level of advantage as having longer legs than another?
4. How could you relate Caster's story to another athlete's situation, like for example, Lance Armstrong's story?

Too Fast to be Clean?

There was an interesting article in the September 2009 issue of Maclean's magazine that discusses the amazing performance of Usain Bolt at the world track championships, who completed the 100-m dash in 9.58 seconds (11 seconds faster than the world's previous record setting time).

Questions are now being raised as to whether or not Bolt used illegal substances even though his test results were clean. This article is a great discussion point for students taking Exercise Science studying the unit on Social and Ethical Problems in Sport. Click here to read the article.