Most Successful Female Athletes

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Women athletes face scrutiny in the past because of their race and gender in the sports world. There have been cases where these women may have had to undergo genetic testing to confirm if they are women or men. There is one such case that has been in the news media within the last few years. That woman is Caster Semenya and she is a South African middle distance runner. She was born January 7, 1991. Semenya won 12th IAAF World Athletic Championship title in 2009 at Berlin when she came in first place at the 12th IAAF World Athletic Championships. Caster won the world championship in the 800-meter race. She also won the the 1200-meter race in the same competition. She was eighteen years old when shocked the sports world with her win. The athlete wore her hair braided in cornrows, she had …show more content…
Semenya was discriminated against because of her physical appearance. However, there are other successful women athletes that are runner’s like Semenya who has not been subjected to gender testing because of their appearance. One of the most successful Jamaican-American track stars is Sanya Richards-Ross. She was born in Jamaica in 1985 and later moved to the United States in her early teens to pursue a career in track. They lived in Fort Lauderdale where her parents felt she would have a better chance at accomplishing her goals of a track star. Richards-Ross is a slim build woman, she wears her hair long, and has nice features as a woman. Judging by her appearance she would not be mistaken as a man and she does not have masculine features. She has been married to her husband Aaron Ross in 2010. Sanya has ran in many competitions she was awarded two Gold medals in the 2012 Olympics in London. In 2004 she was part of four-member Olympic relay team where they won gold in the 400-meter race. Richards-ross also participated in the same IAFF Championship in Berlin as Caster Semenya, but in different race categories. However, she was subjected to the same treatment that Caster
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