Caster Semenya (AFP)

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Rome - Caster Semenya's surprisingly slow performance at a meet in northern Italy can be explained by fatigue and sickness, the world champion's manager said on Wednesday.

Semenya finished a distant ninth in the 800m at the Palio della Quercia in Rovereto on Tuesday.

In her fifth race following an 11-month gender dispute, the South African clocked a dismal 2 minutes, 7.16 seconds - nearly seven seconds behind Italian winner Elisa Cusma Piccione.

"She had no energy during the warmup, her legs were really heavy. She just had a bad day," Semenya's Finnish manager Jukka Harkonen told The Associated Press. "She was totally tired and coughing the whole night.

"She's a 19-year-old girl and she hasn't done a lot of races like this before," Harkonen added. "She wasn't ready and we have to accept that."

Meet director Luigi D'Onofrio wasn't satisfied by the explanation, saying it was still "incomprehensible" to see Semenya running so slow.

"There's no certainty that she did it on purpose. I mean why would she? It hurts both her and the meet," D'Onofrio told the AP. "But it's not a good enough explanation for me."

Despite his skepticism, D'Onofrio still paid Semenya an appearance fee "in line" with what world champions command.

It was Semenya's second consecutive loss after she placed third at the Diamond League meet in Brussels on Friday. In Brussels, Semenya still clocked 1 minute, 59.66 seconds - the fastest time of her comeback. This time she was nowhere close to victory.

Semenya stood third to last after the first lap and never made a move to the front, giving the impression she was just out for a casual jog.

Harkonen acknowledged that Semenya gave up once she realized midway through the race that she couldn't compete, but insisted that was better than not racing at all.

"It was better just to ease up and jog in," the manager said, adding that Semenya should recover in time to race in Milan next week and at the Commonwealth Games in October.