Hands off Caster

Think back to the most hurtful and humiliating experience you’ve ever had to go through in your life.

Please bear with this humble young man from the rolling hills of Tsomo‚ Eastern Cape‚ for a moment and allow him to explain himself further.

I’m asking you to venture back to a dark place that you’ve avoided going to for a long time.

I am asking you to go back to a repressed memory buried so deep that even the great archaeologists of our time would have a hard time getting to it.

It gives you the heebie jeebies just thinking about it doesn’t it?

Chances are you’ve never had to go through something like that ever again and you’ve managed to move on with your life. Right?

Now consider this: Caster Mokgadi Semenya has to constantly relive that experience several times a year and there are some who’ve made it their life’s purpose to remind her about it every single day.

A million thoughts went through my mind as I lay in bed on Wednesday afternoon and I wondered what must go through Semenya’s mind each time she comes within meters of an athletic track.

A serious bout of flu that came dangerously close to getting the better of me confined me to bed this week‚ but given that I’m a glass is half full kind of guy‚ watching Semenya as she took her place on the João Havelange Stadium athletics track made up for the considerable discomfort I was in.

A lot has been written and said about Semenya and many of these so-called experts are people who’ve never met or even interviewed her.

They say Semenya has an unfair biological because her testosterone is well above natural levels in a woman.

But those who hold an opposing view argue that Semenya should not be persecuted for something she has no control over as it is no different from a very tall person taking advantage of his height in basketball‚ or a swimmer with big feet paddling faster than everyone else in the pool.

But to the cynics Semenya is nothing more than a science experiment that has to be dissected in public and we should brace ourselves for an unprecedented storm WHEN she wins the Olympic 800m gold this weekend.

And then there is the venom on Twitter. Trolls on Twitter‚ in particular‚ have found the perfect medium to cross the line between honest opinion and vitriol.

The 140-character weapon of mass destruction has given many of these overgrown numbskulls the freedom to expand their repertoire of insults from the shadows of anonymity. You can bet your last cent that tweets have already been written and the venom will flood the site as soon as that race is over.

I can’t begin to imagine what went through Semenya’s mind as she trudged off the Joao Havelange Stadium track after wining her heat in commanding fashion on Wednesday.

She had to have known that some of the women she beat in that race were not happy and would be tripping over themselves to share their unhappiness with the overeager hacks who queued up for interviews.

And some of them did just that when these journalists predictably angled their questions on Semenya’s presence in the race rather than on the race itself. Unbelievable!

We already know that the 25-year-old from Limpopo is made of sterner stuff and she will get past this latest assault on her dignity just as she’s always done.

We can’t control what the haters of the world say about Semenya.

But we as South Africans should let them know that their reach does not extend to this part of the world and quite frankly‚ they can all go fly a kite.

#HandsOffCaster