AP Biology
Why is Biology Important for Our Everyday Lives?
1. Read the articles attached to this instruction sheet.
2. Partner up with someone at your table. Log on to the website. Go to our class page to click on link.
3. In the “Links” section click on the “HHMI BioInteractive” link. A new window should open.
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/gender-testing-athletes
4. Scroll down the page to the activity entitled “Gender Testing of Athletes.” Click on it and complete the activity with your partner. Begin with the Introduction and work all the way through the activity. You should be able to complete this activity in class.
5. Write a paragraph answering the following questions about what you have learned, and explain how it relates to Caster Semenya. What were the results of her genetic testing (is Caster male or female)? Why? Share your own thoughts on this case and how you think this issue should be handled by the sports world in the future.
6. You will have one paragraph per group. At the bottom of your paragraph state three questions that you have concerning this issue.
August 20, 2009
Gender Test After a Gold-Medal Finish
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
BERLIN — On the blue track at the Olympic Stadium, all three medalists celebrated after the women’s 800 meters at the world track and field championships. But when it came time for the postrace news conference, the gold medalist, Caster Semenya, was nowhere to be seen. She had been replaced on the rostrum by Pierre Weiss, the general secretary of the International Association of Athletics Federations, the sport’s governing body.
Earlier in the day, I.A.A.F. officials had confirmed that Semenya, a muscular 18-year-old from South Africa competing in her first senior championship, was undergoing sex-determination testing to confirm her eligibility to race as a woman.
According to Weiss, track and field officials had not had time to resolve the issue before this meet because Semenya had emerged at the world-class level only in the past month. Weiss said that I.A.A.F. officials and South African track and field officials had agreed that it would be too much to ask of an inexperienced teenager to field questions about the gender issue from the news media.
But Weiss stressed that the testing had been initiated because of “ambiguity, not because we believe she is cheating.”
It was an unprecedented scene at a major sports event, one that eclipsed the night’s other finals, including Yusuf Saad Kamel’s victory for Bahrain in the men’s 1,500 meters with Bernard Lagat of the United States taking the bronze medal.
But despite the controversy, Semenya had no apparent difficulty handling the pressure of her first major final. She broke free of her much more experienced competitors on the final lap and won by the huge margin of more than two seconds, finishing in 1 minute 55.45 seconds. (That was still more than two seconds slower than the world record.)
The silver medal went to Janeth Jepkosgei, the defending world champion from Kenya, who finished well back in 1:57.90. The bronze went to Jennifer Meadows of Britain in 1:57.93.
Weiss said that the medal ceremony for the 800 would take place as scheduled on Thursday evening in the stadium but that if the investigation proves Semenya is not a woman, she would be stripped of the gold and the other medalists elevated. The investigation could take weeks, he said.
“But today there is no proof and the benefit of the doubt must always be in favor of the athlete,” he said. “Which is why we had no reason, nothing in our hands, to forbid the athlete to compete today.”
Not all of the finalists agreed. “These kind of people should not run with us,” Elisa Cusma of Italy, who finished sixth, said in a postrace interview with Italian journalists. “For me, she’s not a woman. She’s a man.”
Mariya Savinova, a Russian who finished fifth, told Russian journalists that she did not believe Semenya would be able to pass a test. “Just look at her,” Savinova said.
But sex-determination testing is a complex process that has often not been handled effectively by sports organizations.
“It turns out genes, hormones and genitals are pretty complicated,” Alice Dreger, a professor of medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University, said in a telephone interview. “There isn’t really one simple way to sort out males and females. Sports require that we do, but biology doesn’t care. Biology does not fit neatly into simple categories, so they do these tests. And part of the reason I’ve criticized the tests is that a lot of times, the officials don’t say specifically how they’re testing and why they’re using that test. It should be subject to scientific review.”
Sex-determination testing was once obligatory for female athletes at the Olympics because of persistent allegations that some competitors were not really women. Sanctions are very rare. One case came at the 2006 Asian Games, where a middle-distance runner, Santhi Soundarajan of India, was stripped of a silver medal after failing a verification test.
The sex-determination testing was phased out in 1999 because of concerns about inequities. The testing is now reserved for specific cases in Olympic sports.
Nick Davies, a spokesman for the I.A.A.F., said that Semenya, who is listed at 5 feet 7 and 140 pounds in her I.A.A.F. biography, first came to his organization’s attention this year by slicing more than seven seconds off her best time of 2008 in the 800.
That is a huge drop in a relatively short race, but after running 2:04.23 and winning the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games, she ran 2:00.58 in a local South African meet on March 9 and burst to prominence by winning the African Junior Championships on July 31 in Bambous, Mauritius, in 1:56.72. That was the fastest time of the year, senior level included.
Davies said that potential doping was the first concern when a dramatic drop in time occurs, but in Semenya’s case, he said the I.A.A.F. had moved on to examining other possibilities.
“We just acted in a way we thought was sensible,” Davies said. “If we would have sat back and done nothing, it would have been very strange of us as well.”
He said the I.A.A.F. had decided to confirm the existence of the investigation only when asked about it in Berlin by reporters. “The choice is that you lie, which we don’t like to do,” said Davies, acknowledging that it was unfortunate that Semenya’s privacy had been violated.
Weiss said there had not been enough time to reach a conclusion. “She was unknown three weeks ago,” he told reporters. “Nobody could anticipate this one. Sorry. We are fast, but we are not a lion.”
He said the I.A.A.F. would have “preferred not to have the controversy” at its marquee event, but not at the price of depriving a potentially eligible athlete like Semenya from competing.
“If none of it’s true, I feel very sorry for her,” said Meadows, the British athlete who sat next to Weiss during the medalists’ news conference.
Weiss said that the two-pronged investigation was being conducted in South Africa and in Berlin in hospitals that specialize in sex-testing issues. He said that Dr. Harold Adams, a South African on the I.A.A.F. medical commission, was helping to coordinate the work in South Africa.
Davies emphasized that the testing is extensive, beginning with a visual evaluation by a physician. “There is chromosome testing, gynecological investigation, all manner of things, organs, X-rays, scans,” he said. “It’s very, very comprehensive.”
Dreger, the Northwestern professor, said the doctors could examine genes, gonads, genitalia, hormone levels and medical history.
“But at the end of the day, they are going to have to make a social decision on what counts as male and female, and they will wrap it up as if it is simply a scientific decision,” Dreger said. “And the science actually tells us sex is messy. Or as I like to say, ‘Humans like categories neat, but nature is a slob.’”
August 22, 2010
As Semenya Returns, So Do Questions
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
BERLIN — One year later, Caster Semenya is in a more secure place, but her rivals in the 800 meters are not.
After a forced 11-month absence from the event that she had bolted from obscurity to dominate, Semenya returned to competition last month after receiving confirmation from track and field’s governing body, the I.A.A.F., that she could compete as a woman.
On Sunday, on the same blue track in the Olympic Stadium where she won a world title last August, Semenya won the 800 again in a one-day meet. Her competitors, sharply critical when she emerged last year, were still voicing concerns, even though Semenya’s winning time of 1 minute 59.90 seconds was more than four seconds slower than her winning time last year and even though she had to come from behind on the final straightaway to win by a much smaller margin.
Jemma Simpson of Britain, who finished fourth Sunday in 2:00.57, said that although she felt sorry for Semenya because of the scrutiny she had endured in the last year, other competitors had been slighted in the search for justice for Semenya.
“It’s obviously a human rights issue, but human rights affect everyone in the race, not just one person,” Simpson said. “And for the rest of the field, it gets ignored.”
When asked what the fair solution would be, Simpson said: “I think every competitor has got to be considered in this kind of thing, and it’s just like, maybe for the spectators it’s fair, but we spend our whole lives trying to do this. We train hard, and it can just be taken away from you.”
Simpson conceded that the issue was “really tough” and that Semenya had a right to privacy, but she said it would be easier to accept the I.A.A.F.’s decision to allow Semenya to compete if there had been some public explanation for the ruling’s rationale. When the I.A.A.F. cleared Semenya to compete as a woman in July, it did not release test results or provide details of its methodology.
Raised as a woman in rural South Africa, Semenya has long faced questions about her sex. During South African junior competitions, rival coaches and competitors sometimes asked for proof that she was female. But the issue became a global talking point here last year after she broke free of a strong field early on the final lap and won by more than two seconds on the same day the I.A.A.F. had confirmed news reports that she had been asked to submit to sex determination tests.
Though she was awarded her gold medal in Berlin, Semenya, then 18, was not allowed to conduct a postrace news conference after track and field officials became concerned that she would not be able to cope with the controversy.
But she spoke freely after her victory Sunday with only her agent, Jukka Harkonen, by her side. “I did not think about everything that happened after my gold medal,” Semenya said. “I just concentrated on my race and on my time. My goal was to run under two minutes, and I achieved my goal.”
“I cannot say Berlin is bad memories for me,” she said later. “Because for me while I was in Berlin, I was always happy.”
Harkonen has been one of the architects of Semenya’s schedule since her return, starting her off at two minor meets in Finland last month, then urging her to return to the elite level in Berlin because of the inherent symbolism.
“It’s a good drama,” Harkonen said.
Her troubles have not yet been good for business, even though a documentary film will soon be released. Harkonen estimated that Semenya’s inability to compete for almost a year cost her $250,000 in lost appearance fees and prize money.
But it has certainly raised awareness of the complexity of determining sex as well as raising her profile in her sport. “There’s Usain Bolt and there’s Caster Semenya,” Harkonen said, perhaps too optimistically.
Semenya received a loud ovation from the crowd when she was introduced. Simpson said that although there were plenty of curiosity-seekers staring at Semenya in the call-up room, the other competitors treated her normally.
Semenya broke the two-minute barrier with only a few weeks of training and in her third race of the season.
“It is certainly frustrating to run against somebody who seems to be doing it effortlessly,” said Diane Cummins, a 36-year-old Canadian born in South Africa who finished eighth. “I mean, we all honestly believe that Caster Semenya pushed to her absolute potential could break the world record and that’s 1:53, and that’s what college guys are running, so from that perspective, she’s far superior than any female 800-meter runner we’ve ever had.”
Semenya was not the only impressive 800-meter runner on Sunday. Minutes after her race, David Rudisha of Kenya broke the 13-year-old world record in the men’s 800, winning in 1:41.09. That was two-hundredths of a second faster than the mark set by Wilson Kipketer in August 1997.
Since her return, Semenya and her representatives have declined to comment on particulars of her case or to confirm whether she had to have treatment in order to become eligible.
“We want to live in the present and the future, not the past,” her coach, Michael Seme, said Sunday.
But her present clearly shares some elements with the past. Elisa Cusma Piccione of Italy, the only runner Sunday who also competed in the world championship final against Semenya, deflected questions about Semenya after saying last year that “she’s not a woman; she’s a man.”
But others are still speaking out, and Cummins suggested that track officials consider revisiting what constitutes an acceptable biological baseline for female athletes.
“We have levels that we are not allowed to test over, so even if she’s a female, she’s on the very fringe of the normal female athlete biological composition from what I understand in terms of hormone testing,” Cummins said. “So from that perspective I think most of us sort of just feel like literally we are running against a man because what we know to be female is a certain testosterone level. And if that isn’t the case, they need to change everything.”