Female South African Athlete to Undergo Gender Verification Test

Caster Semenya – the South African athlete tipped to win this evening's 800m women's final – is to undergo a gender verification test after concerns were raised about the 18-year-old's vastly improved form. Semenya ran 1min 56.72sec at the African Junior Championships last month, just 0.51 of a second slower than Kelly Holmes' career best and eight seconds better than her time in 2008.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has confirmed that a gender verification process was requested three weeks ago, soon after Semenya's staggering run in Mauritius.

According to the IAAF director of communications, Nick Davies, a complicated process of medical examinations is already underway, but the results will not be available for several weeks. Semenya, then, will still be allowed to compete in this evening's final.

"We don't have any conclusive evidence that she should not be allowed to run," said Davies, "We are waiting for the report ... We simply ran out of time.

"The situation today is that we don't have any conclusive evidence that she should not be allowed to run. It would be terribly wrong to withdraw the athlete." Davies could not say whether any retrospective action could be taken should Semenya win a medal and subsequently be revealed to have issues surrounding her gender.

"She is a female," insisted Molatelo Malehopo, general manager of Athletics South Africa. "We are completely sure about that and we wouldn't have entered her into the female competition if we had any doubts.

"We have not been absent minded, we are very sure of her gender. We are aware of the claims that have been made but our aim at the moment is to prepare Caster for the race this evening. We have not started testing and we have no plans to do."

Britons Jennifer Meadows and Marilyn Okoro are also in tonight's final and will hope to improve the team medal haul after the gold medal winning performances of Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu.