By TaRessa Stovall

In a victory not only for a gifted athlete, but for humanity as a whole, Caster Semenya, the gifted South African teen track star who was mired in controversy over confusion about her gender, was found “innocent of any wrong” doing by the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) and allowed to retain her 800m gold medal, title and prize money.

In August, Semenya won gold in the 800 meters at the 2009 World Championship in Athletics. Her time was 1:55.5 in the final, the fastest time of the year. “The 18-year-old Semenya … stormed to victory in August’s world championships in Berlin,” reported The Guardian/UK .

Not only was Semenya allowed to retain her medal, title and winnings, but possibly a bit more privacy, as an agreement with the IAAF specified that the scientific gender tests conducted this summer will be confidential and not announced to the public. After IAAF officials speculated about her gender, tests were conducted and on September 10, when the IAAF announced that the test results would be announced in November, Australian newspapers “leaked” a story that she had been found to be a hermaphrodite.

This sparked intense reaction and comment from around the world and throughout the blogosphere, including on TheDefendersOnline.

But the emotional scars Caster Semenya has suffered may not be soothed by these recent decisions. As Ariel Levy writes in the November 30 issue of The New Yorker , when she journeyed to South Africa to interview Semenya:

“I told her I had come from New York City to write about her, and she asked me why.

‘Because you’re the champion,’ I said.

She snorted and said, ‘You make me laugh.’

I asked her if she would talk to me, not about the tests … but about her evolution as an athlete, her progression from Limpopo to the world stage. She shook her head vigorously. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t talk to you. I can’t talk to anyone. I can’t say to anyone how I feel or what’s in my mind.’

I said I thought that must suck.

‘No,’ she said, very firmly. Her voice was strong and low. ‘That doesn’t suck. It sucks when I was running and they were writing those things. That sucked. That is when it sucks. Now I just have to walk away. That’s all I can do.’ She smiled a small, bemused smile. ‘Walk away from all of this, maybe forever. Now I just walk away.’ Then she took a few steps backward, turned around, and did.”

Maybe that’s the real story behind the gold, the global spotlight, the prize money, the brouhaha: that we should remember that athletes are human, as vulnerable to emotional pain as anyone else, and deserving of respect not only for their achievements, but for their essential humanity as well.

TaRessa Stovall is Managing Editor of TheDefendersOnline.