I was eagerly watching along with the rest of the world the women's Olympic 800m final race to see if now 21 year old Caster Semenya's drama would end with a golden result. Alas it didn't.
She was dead last for 600m of the race and waited a little too long to start her finishing kick and ended up with the silver medal behind Russia's Mariya Savinova in a time of 1:57:23. Defending Olympic champ Pamela Jelimo of Kenya faded badly down the strtch and finished fourth.
The tactics she use in this race has led to speculation by BBC commentator Colin Jackson that she's holding back in order to not win races in dominating fashion, and avoid a repeat of the international drama that sidelined her for 10 months after the 2009 world championship victory. .
Atlanta Olympian Michael Johnson disagreed with Jackson's theory on Semenya's motivation.
"Why would she prepare and come here and not want to win? She showed in 2009 she was a fighter. I am not buying that. I don't see that in Semenya," Johnson said.
I'm not buying that either. But damn, Semenya is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't win big.
What I was happy to hear is that Semenya's coach is now the great Olympian Maria Mutola of Mozambique, who faced her own gender drama back in the day as well.
And yes, there's Rio four years from now.
No comments:
Post a Comment