The International Association of Athletics Federations has dismissed claims by embattled Athletics South Africa (ASA) that the international body had made no attempt to contact it about Caster Semenya’s gender test results.
On Thursday, a furious ASA president, Leonard Chuene, dismissed media reports that he could not be contacted. ”How can the IAAF struggle to contact us when they speak to us on a daily basis. There is more to these allegations because the reporting has been personalised,” he fumed.
”One story says I must resign. How can I resign on an allegation that has not been proved to have a basis. It is clear that there is a bigger agenda to get rid of me,” he said.
But in response to the Mail & Guardian’s questions on Thursday, IAAF spokesperson Nick Davis said: ”We have been trying to contact Harold Adams, who is a doctor for ASA and a member of the IAAF Medical Commission for some time now and cannot reach him at all.
”We are also still waiting for the results of tests conducted in South Africa.”
Davis said Adams had been contacted to carry out the tests in South Africa. ”The dossier was in his hands. He is supposed to bring the data to the attention of the IAAF,” he said.
”The IAAF medical director and chairperson of the medical commission are dealing with a medical matter, so we need to speak to Dr Adams about it.”
The M&G has established that Adams has been an ASA director since November 7 2006. Efforts to contact him yesterday were also unsuccessful. Chuene said Davis ”is giving conflicting reports”.
On Thursday morning, the local media was awash with news suggesting that the ASA was the only stumbling block to the publication of the world 800m champion’s results.
According to the news reports, the IAAF had tried to persuade ASA to send Semenya to the international body’s headquarters in Monaco to discuss the outcome of the tests taken at the world championships in Berlin last month after she ran an extraordinary winning time.
In an email sent to IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss, ASA manager Molatelo Malehopo said the ASA had been inundated with media inquiries alleging that Davies had made a statement that Caster’s results were out and that the local association was impeding the IAAF’s efforts to contact the athlete.
”Mr Chuene will be embarrassed when the results are released and this will leave him with no option but to resign. We need the clarity urgently on these utterances so that we can respond appropriately to the media,” Malehopo’s email read.
Confirming that the IAAF had received Semenya’s test results, Davis told the M&G the IAAF needed to speak to Semenya privately once the results had been verified by its experts. ”We hope to have her full cooperation in order to conclude this matter to the satisfaction of the IAAF, and with all respect to her personal rights,” he said.