Meet the Indian sprinter who came to Caster's aid

Cape Town - Indian sprinter Dutee Chand is confident that Caster Semenya will win her appeal against the IAAF's new testosterone regulations. 

Chand knows what it takes to go to the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS) to fight the IAAF. 

In 2015, she won an appeal against the IAAF after the governing body of world athletics had then tried to regulate testosterone in female athletes.

Those regulations would have impacted on Chand in the same way that Semenya is now being told that she will not be able to compete in women's athletics unless she lowers her natural testosterone levels. 

According to the Indian Express website, Chand mailed Semenya as soon as she heard of the latest eligibility criteria in women's athletics and she immediately put Semenya's team in touch with her own legal team from Norton Rose Fulbright.

"In April, when I got to know that Semenya was being targeted by the IAAF through their new ruling, I wrote her an email and told her that I could ask my legal team to help her. She replied that it would be good," Chand told the paper in June last year. 

Chand says that Semenya now has the support to beat the IAAF.

"She is already a star and champion who is strong enough to deal with such trials," Dutee said.

"Nobody should undergo what I did. This is not just my and Semenya’s fight. We may be the face of this battle but it’s not just for us but for all women.

"It’s totally unfair to ask any person to control something that is natural. You can’t call it an advantage. Each person has a different body and it’s not our fault if we are designed this way.

"Some are taller and stronger genetically and we wouldn’t say they have an unfair advantage over the others, would we?"

Semenya and her legal team are currently in Switzerland where they are sitting in on the third day of her appeal.