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South African athlete, Caster Semenya, said she offered to strip naked before World Athletics officials to prove she is female

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South African double Olympic 800m champion, Caster Semenya, has revealed that she once offered to strip naked and show her vagina to officials of the World Athletics Federation when she was 18 years of age to prove she was female.

The 31-year-old South African middle-distance champion said in an interview on Wednesday that when she first burst into the scene in 2009 by after winning the women’s 800m world title in a stunning fashion, the world athletics governing body doubted her gender and insisted she should undergo gender verification tests.

“They thought I had a d***, probably… but I told them: ‘It’s fine. I’m a female, I don’t care. If you want to see I’m a woman, I will show you my vagina. All right?’” Semenya recalled shortly after winning the women’s 800m world title at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany.

Semenya has a condition known as hyperandrogenism, which is characterised by higher than the usual levels of testosterone, a hormone that increases muscle mass and strength and the body’s ability to use oxygen.

Gender tests conducted on the athlete have shown that Semenya has no womb or ovaries but that she had internal testes, the male sexual organs which produce testosterone, and her levels of the hormone were three times that of a “normal” female.

In 2011, she was forced to take medication after a ruling by World Athletics, followed by an injunction by the International Association of Athletics Federations that all female athletes with hyperandrogenism had to medically lower their testosterone levels.

“It made me sick, made me gain weight, panic attacks, I don’t know if I was ever going to have a heart attack.

“It’s like stabbing yourself with a knife every day. But I had no choice.

“I’m 18, I wanted to run, I wanted to make it to Olympics, that was the only option for me,” Semenya said in the interview.

In 2020, Semenya lost her appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal to set aside a 2019 Court of Arbitration Sport (CAS) ruling that female athletes with high natural testosterone levels must take medication to reduce it.

She had approached the tribunal after CAS, sport’s highest court, ruled that the regulations of World Athletics were necessary for athletes with DSDs in races ranging from 400 metres to a mile to ensure fair competition.

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Chelsea offers Lukaku plus cash to Napoli for Osimhen

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English Premier League club, Chelsea, is said to be willing to offer Belgium striker, Romelu Lukaku, as well as fork out £77 million to Napoli in a bid to lure Nigerian forward, Victor Osimhen, to the club this summer.

Multiple reports in the Italian sporting media reveal that the Blues are willing to use forgotten man Lukaku and unnamed player to sweeten the deal to bring in Osimhen.

The Belgian striker who is on loan at Roma, is set to depart the Italian capital at the end of the season and make his return to Stamford Bridge where Chelsea are already planning ways to get rid of him on a permanent basis.

According to Gianluca Di Marzio of Sky Sport, the latest development in the Lukaku’s saga with the Blues is that Chelsea have gone as far as offering the 30-year-old attacker to Napoli.

“The Blues are aiming to sign Victor Osimhen this coming summer and are aiming to include Lukaku in a deal for the Nigerian international,” Marzio said.

“Newly appointed Napoli sporting director, Manna, is said to be very keen on Lukaku after having tried to bring him to Juventus and Napoli are currently considering the offer with Roma slipping away from the race for Big Rom.”

The 30-year-old Belgian rejoined the Blues in a disastrous £97.5m deal in 2021 and has spent the last two seasons out on loan, firstly at Inter Milan then this time around at Roma.

With two years still remaining on his deal, the Blues will look to get his salary off their wage bill for good this summer.

Osimhen on the other hand, helped Napoli to a historic Serie A title victory last season, scoring 26. This season, he has scored 14 goals in 22 appearances, having missed chunks of the campaign due to a hamstring injury and Afcon.

Lukaku, meanwhile, has netted 11 goals in 29 Serie A appearances for Roma, with 19 in all competitions.

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Nigeria’s 4x400m mixed relay, 4×400 teams qualify for Olympics

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Team Nigeria on Sunday morning booked two places at the upcoming Paris Olympics Games in the Mixed 4x400m relay and 4X400m men’s events with automatic qualification spots at the ongoing World Relays in the Bahamas.

The mixed 4x400m relay team which had the quartet of Samuel Ogazi, Ella Onojuvwevwo, Chidi Okezie, and Esther Elo Joseph, picked the slot after finishing second behind the USA in their heat with a time of 3:13.79, to ensured Nigeria’s presence on the Olympic stage.

Both Nigeria and the US were a distance ahead of other in the heat and it was obvious as at the third leg that the race was between the two countries.

According to reports on the race, Okezie ran an impressive third leg in 44.78 to handover his baton first, but a US Olympics gold-medalist, Kendall Ellis, was too much for Esther Elo Joseph in the anchor leg as she led the United States to the finish line first.

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