Caster Semenya (AFP)

Berlin - Family, coaches and South African officials came to the defence on Thursday of new world 800m champion Caster Semenya, saying talent and hard training were behind the success of the teenage runner who has been ordered to take a gender test to prove she is a woman.

The 18-year-old Semenya dominated her rivals to win the 800m by a big margin on Wednesday despite revelations that surfaced earlier in the day that she was undergoing a gender verification test because of concerns she does not meet the requirements to compete as a woman.

"She said to me she doesn't see what the big deal is all about," South Africa team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane said on Thursday. "She believes it is God-given talent and she will exercise it."

Mlangeni-Tsholetsane said Semenya was thrilled with winning her first world title.

"She was over the moon," Mlangeni-Tsholetsane said.

Semenya wasn't the only one wondering what all the fuss was about.

'She's my little girl'

"She is my little girl," her father, Jacob, told the Sowetan newspaper. "I raised her and I have never doubted her gender. She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times."

Semenya's paternal grandmother, Maputhi Sekgala, said the controversy "doesn't bother me that much because I know she's a woman".

"What can I do when they call her a man, when she's really not a man? It is God who made her look that way," Sekgala told the South African daily The Times.

About three weeks ago, the IAAF asked the South African athletics federation to conduct the gender test after Semenya burst onto the scene by posting a world leading time of 1 minute, 56.72 seconds at the African junior championships in Bambous, Mauritius.

The teenager's stunning improvement in times, along with her muscular build and deep voice, sparked speculation about her gender.

Semenya did not attend the medal winners' news conference after winning Wednesday night's race by a margin of more than two seconds in 1 minute, 55.45 seconds. She was replaced at the dais by IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss.

Weiss said the testing was ordered because of "ambiguity, not because we believe she is cheating".

If the tests show that Semenya is not a woman, she would be stripped of her gold medal.

Experts

"But today there is no proof and the benefit of doubt must always be in favour of the athlete," Weiss said.

The verification test, which takes weeks to complete, requires a physical medical evaluation, and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender.

Gender testing used to be mandatory for female athletes at the Olympics, but the screenings were dropped in 1999.

One reason for the change was that not all women have standard female chromosomes. In addition, there are cases of people who have ambiguous genitalia or other congenital conditions.

The most common cause of sexual ambiguity is congenital adrenal hyperplasia, an endocrine disorder where the adrenal glands produce abnormally high levels of hormones.

Gideon Sam, the president of South Africa's Olympic governing body, expressed dismay about the controversy.

"We condemn the way she was linked with such media speculation and allegation, especially on a day she ran in the final of her first major world event," Sam said. "It's the biggest day of her life."

Hard work

Morris Gilbert, a media consultant for TuksSport, the University of Pretoria's sports department, said the issue of Semenya's gender has not been raised since the 18-year-old freshman began attending the school, where she studies sports science.

"We are all very proud of her and of what she's achieved," Gilbert said. "The university stands behind her all the way."

He attributed her recent success to hard work and rigorous training.

"She trains a lot," Gilbert said. "If you go to the athletics track, you're sure to find her there. I don't think she had really good training before she came to the university. She's from a very poor area."

But Semenya's former school headmaster said he thought for years that the student was a boy.

"She was always rough and played with the boys. She liked soccer and she wore pants to school. She never wore a dress. It was only in Grade 11 that I realised she's a girl," Eric Modiba, head of the Nthema Secondary School, told the Beeld newspaper.

While Semenya's case has attracted a flurry of attention, it's not the first gender controversy in track and field history.

In 2006, the Asian Games 800 champion, Santhi Soundarajan of India, was stripped of her medal after failing a gender test. Perhaps the most famous case is that of Stella Walsh, also known as Stanislawa Walasiewicz, a Polish athlete who won gold in the 100 at the 1932 Olympics, and was later found to have had ambiguous genitalia.