• Athletics

Meadows urges athletes to accept Semenya's return

ESPN staff
July 7, 2010
Jenny Meadows finished third, two places behind Caster Semenya, at the World Championships © Getty Images
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Jenny Meadows has welcomed Caster Semenya's imminent return to international competition and urged her fellow athletes to accept the South African as a female.

The 800 metres world champion has been permitted to resume competitive racing after an 11-month exile following a gender verification test.

"The IAAF make the rules and we race against her," Meadows said. "We've got to accept that, yeah, she's a female.

"The medical team say that the place she's at now, she's a female. If they she's a female I'm happy to compete against her."

Meadows finished in third place behind Semenya at the World Championships, and she has admitted that she is relieved to have not won the silver medal.

"I'm really, really glad that I got the bronze medal there," she said. "If I'd got that silver medal there would have always been that doubt that I might have been the world champion - maybe that bronze medal protected me from a little bit of heartache."

In other news, Dwain Chambers has been axed from the sprint relay team for the European Championships - despite being the favourite for individual 100m gold. Chambers has been omitted as he is ineligible for the 2012 Olympic Games after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs seven years ago.

"It would be easy to pick Chambers for the relay but we decided not to because in the Olympic Games we can't," said Team GB head coach Charles van Commenee.

"We won't use the easy option now that we can't use two years from now. We're building for 2012. This selection is geared towards the Olympics."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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