South African 800-metre world champion Caster Semenya nearly boycotted the awards ceremony after feeling devastated by the row over her gender, her family and athletics officials said on Friday.

“She said she did not want to go on the podium, but I told her she must,” Athletics South Africa president Leonard Chuene told The Times newspaper in Johannesburg.

“She is not rejoicing. She (didn’t) want the medal,” said Chuene, who presented Semenya with the gold medal on Thursday.

“She told me: ‘No one ever said I was not a girl, but here (in Berlin) I am not.

“I am not a boy. Why did you bring me here? You should have left me in my village at home’.”

Semenya’s family said they were angered at the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) decision to conduct gender tests on their 18-year-old daughter.

“We won’t accept her having to undergo those tests, and we agree with her – she should (have) rather rejected the medal. We won’t allow our daughter to be disgraced,” her father Jacob told The Times.

“I feel so proud of my daughter. The talk that they want to examine her, it won’t happen while I’m alive,” her mother Dorcus said.

“She’s a woman. I gave birth to her. They must give what my daughter deserves.

“She won that medal,” she told the paper.

The popular Sowetan tabloid published a copy of Semenya’s birth certificate, listing her sex as female, on its front page under the headline “She’s a girl” with a picture of a young Semenya towering over a group of school friends.

In an editorial “Shush, you silly twerps”, the popular tabloid hit out at Semenya’s detractors, calling it a “clearly contrived controversy”.

© AFP 2012

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