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Watch: Caster Semenya returns to world championships
Caster Semenya returns after five years, and made her first public appearance in the 5 000m women's race in Eugene.
EUGENE, OREGON – JULY 20: Caster Semenya of Team South Africa competes in the Women’s 5000m heats on day six of the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 at Hayward Field on July 20, 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. Patrick Smith/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Patrick Smith / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
On Tuesday, the World Athletics president, Sebastian Coe, said attention falls on Caster Semenya who for the first time in a long time, ran in the 5 000m race.
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The South African last competed at the world championship in London, in 2017, where she won her third 800m world crown.
A year later, she won double gold in the 800m and 1 500m at the Commonwealth Games, which was the last time she represented South Africa globally.
Semenya was forced to switch from her favoured distance to the longer event due to gender eligibility rules that required her to take testosterone-reducing drugs to compete in races between 400m to a mile.
World Athletics bars women athletes with high testosterone levels from competing in shorter races because the governing body says the hormone increases muscle mass and oxygen uptake.
Semenya, who became a world champion at 18 years of age in Berlin, in 2009, has made several unsuccessful legal attempts to overturn the ruling.
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