This star crossed edition of the Commonwealth Games has its opening ceremonies in Delhi, India today, but there will be one well known athlete who organizers and others were hoping would bring some star power to the event that won't be coming.
2009 800m world champion Caster Semenya won't be part of the South African team for these games. She's staying home to deal with a back problem.
She stated that she'd been having serious lower back pain and had not been comfortable during her last few races.
The South African sports authorities want to save her for more high profile events such as the 2011 IAAF Athletics World Championships and the London Olympics.
"It would serve no purpose to have an athlete in Delhi who was struggling with any sort of injury that would compromise performance and it is our medical view that physically and emotionally she would not be capable of doing justice to her talent at an event of this magnitude," said Team South Africa's Chief Medical Officer Shuaib Majra. While it would have been nice to see you run and win in Delhi, the 2011 IAAF Championships and the 2012 Games are the bigger prize. Get well and hope to see you kicking butt and taking names in the world's various meets soon.
Christine Ehlers a South African transwoman who was unfairly dismissed from her sales job at a steel company, has settled out of court.
The 43 year old Ehlers sued in 2009 after her employer, multinational steel company Bohler Udderholm Africa dismissed her after she rejected an offer to take a freelance sales position.
Fortunately for Christine, she has Section 9(3) of the South African Constitution on her side. This it what the Constitutionally Speaking blog had to say about it whnshe took her case to court:
Section 9(3) of the South African Constitution prohibits unfair discrimination on the grounds of sex, gender and sexual orientation. In the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v Minister of Justice the Constitutional Court stated that the concept of “sexual orientation” as used in section 9(3) of the 1996 Constitution “must be given a generous interpretation” and thus applies equally to the orientation of persons who are “transsexual” (another, less politically correct, term for transgendered). Christine was thus obviously discriminated against on the basis of her sexual orientation.
South African Labour Court Judge Ellem Francis ruled on August 13 that Ehlers be reinstated to the position she held at the time of her dismissal with back pay and benefits and take steps to prevent future discrimination.
The company was also ordered to apologize to her within a week.
For the first time since she was reinstated by the IAAF to compete, South African 800m world champion Caster Semenya faced world class competition in her event.
On Sunday she ran her third race since she was was forced to sit out 11 months to undergo gender verification testing at the behest of the IAAF after running the fifth fastest 800m time for a woman in last year's World Championships.
She returned to the scene of last year's triumph in Berlin and showed little effects from the alleged HRT she's undergoing and lack of elite level competition. She won the race by closing a 20 meter gap down the homestretch to win in 1:59:90.
But her competitors are still chomping Hater Tots and drinking Hateraid Fierce from 55 gallon drums.
British runner Jemma Simpson, who finished fourth in this race, let loose in a Telegraph interview.
"It's obviously a human rights issue but human rights affect everyone in the race, not just one person," Simpson said. "The rest of the field just gets ignored. No way is it a personal issue but it's a debate about what is right and fair for everyone. It's a really tough subject and a lot of people are very careful about what they say. You have to be.
"You have to be diplomatic and keep your opinions to yourself but sometimes it is so frustrating."
Canadian runner Diane Cummins plied on in her interviews comments.
"Unfortunately for Caster, she's grown up in an environment that is complicated not just for her but for human science. Basically, is she man, is she lady? What constitutes male, what constitutes female?"
"Even if she is a female, she's on the very fringe of the normal athlete female biological composition from what I understand of hormone testing. So, from that perspective, most of us just feel that we are literally running against a man."
"It is certainly frustrating to be running against someone who seems to be doing it effortlessly. We all believe that Caster Semenya, pushed to her full potential, could break the world record.
Semenya's grandmother said in a BBC interview last year, "I know she’s a woman – I raised her myself. If you go at my home village and ask any of my neighbors, they would tell you that Mokgadi (Semenya's given name) is a girl. They know because they helped raise her. People can say whatever they like but the truth will remain, which is that my child is a girl. I am not concerned about such things."
Canadian cyclist Kristen Worley, who attempted to become the first trans Olympian ever in 2008, is a co-founder of the Coalition of Athletes for Inclusion in Sport. She said the 19-year-old runner’s gender should never have been in question and blasted Cummins.
“She’s ignorant,” Worley said. “You’ve got a bunch of athletes who are women who are upset because they’re not running fast enough. It’s bad sportsmanship, that’s what this is. … It’s totally sour grapes.”
Worley took aim at the gender based performance double standard vis a vis Usain Bolt and Caster Semenya.
“Basically when Usain shows up, it’s a question of who’s going to be second and third. That’s a given,” she said. “We make him king of the day. We make him world champion. We the media, we society say ‘Usain, go faster, show us what you can do.’
“But when a woman does it, who didn’t actually set a world record (in winning at the Berlin worlds last year), who (more than 10) women have run faster than her, who didn’t set a meet record, we throw her into stirrups and virtually rape her. We did that because of the way her face looks and her voice.”
I agree and have said it since this controversy broke out last year. It's sour grapes tinged with transphobic bigotry.
Just win, Caster. The London Games are only two years away.
Caster Semenya will participate in an 800m race at the Lappeenranta Games in Finland today. It's her first race for the 800 meters world champion since she was cleared by the IAAF to compete last Tuesday.
She was left off South Africa’s team for the African championships which start July 28 in Kenya and according to the South Africa’s athletics federation the 19 year old would work toward qualifying for the Commonwealth Games being held in Delhi, India this October.
“She is really looking forward to the competition but is not expecting anything great,” her manager Jukka Harkonen said to a reporter Thursday. “She’s in the middle of her training right now, but needs the experience of competing again.”
So am I, Caster. Hope you kick butt and take names all the way to the 2012 London Olympic Games and beyond.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted by South Africa comes to a close today with the championship match being played in Johannesburg between The Netherlands and Spain.
Team USA actually won their group and were poised to make a long knockout stage run but unfortunately lost to Ghana to end their South African business trip.
Hey soccer's only our fifth best sport in the States, but it'll be a different story at next month's FIBA World Basketball Championships for Men.
I'm also proud of Team USA and the gritty way they played. A few more breaks and they may have gone a long way in this 2010 World Cup.
But we'll have to wait like everybody else on the planet except for Brazil to qualify for the next FIFA World Cup tournament in 2014.
Back to the World Cup title game. The FIFA world number 4 ranked Netherlands finished atop Group E and knocked off Slovakia 2-1, FIFA Number one world ranked Brazil 2-1 and Uruguay 3-2 to get to the finals.
The FIFA world number 2 ranked Spain got off to a rough start. They were upset 1-0 by Switzerland in their opening Group H match but recovered to win the group.
In the knockout round Spain got into an interesting pattern of being scoreless at halftime, then coming up with a second half goal to send them to the next round.
They beat FIFA world number 3 ranked Portugal, Paraguay and FIFA world number 6 ranked Germany by identical 1-0 scores to reach their first World Cup final.
It will be the first FIFA world championship for whatever team comes out on top. Will it be the Netherlands, who are in their third final but so far haven't gone home with the big prize?
Or will Spain once again keep it scoreless until halftime, then come up with the golden second half goal and make it hold up for their first ever FIFA world title?
I'll be tuned in with the rest of the planet to find out.
Team USA opens up in World Cup Group C play with its first competitive match against England since the 1950 'Miracle on Grass'. That 1-0 game was rated as the greatest upset in FIFA history.
This time Team USA and team captain Landon Donovan won't be sneaking up on England or the rest of the world. They are ranked Number 14 in the FIFA world rankings, upset then FIFA World Number 1 ranked Spain last summer enroute to the Confederations Cup final with Brazil and have 14 players on this squad who play in the English Premier League.
The Americans will try to capture some of that almost 50 year old magic with a team that is the most diverse USA team ever put together for World Cup competition.
The USA men are trying to prove to the rest of the soccer playing world that we can hang and compete with the soccer superpowers. They also want to erase the memories of a less than satisfying 2006 World Cup tournament in Germany.
They tied Italy 1-1, but lost to Ghana and the Czech Republic to compile an 0-2-1 record in Group play and not advance.
If they want to advance in the 2010 edition of the World Cup tournament, this widely anticipated match against England is a critical step toward doing so.
800m World Champion runner Caster Semenya of South Africa has been impatiently waiting to get back on the track since she burst onto the international track scene at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin.
She blistered the field with a 1:55:45 time that is the fifth best time ever run by a woman in history, and ever since then has been dogged by questions about her gender. The IAAF ordered gender test results are supposed to be available later this month.
Semenya is understandably frustrated and angry about the delays and being denied the opportunity to compete in a meet at Stellenbosch, South Africa at the request of Athletics South Africa (ASA). The ASA has counseled the 19 year old to await the IAAF gender test results before she returns to 800 meter racing.
She was left off the South African team competing in the 2010 IAAF African Championships in Nairobi, Kenya July 28 despite having qualified for it by virtue of her championship winning time in Berlin.
Semenya announced her intention to return to competition at the June 24 EAA meet in Zaragoza, Spain.
However, the Zaragoza EAA meet has been cancelled due to a budget shortfall according to the meet organizers. It had been in financial difficulties in past years and the Spanish Athletics Federation stated there was no chance of it returning this year.
So once again, Caster Semenya's return to track is on hold along with a definitive resolution to this gender controversy that has been painfully public for her and glacially slow in the way it has played out.
The cynic in me says maybe that was the intent in the first place, since the London Olympic Games are only two years away.
19 year old South African runner Caster Semenya has patiently waited seven months for her competition status to be sorted out ever since she won the 800m world championship in Berlin last summer.
But it seems that her patience, and the patience of her attorneys is wearing thin.
"I hereby publicly announce my return to athletics competitions," Semenya said in a statement. "I am an athlete first and foremost, and it is vital for my competitiveness, my well-being and my preparations for events during the European summer that I measure my performance against other athletes."
"These processes have dragged on for far too long with no reasonable certainty as to their end."
She wants to return to international competition at a IAAF sanctioned race being contested in Zaragoza, Spain on June 24, the EAA Classic.
The IAAF medical staff has yet to complete the gender verification tests, and the ASA (Athletics South Africa) is uncomfortably caught in the middle along with Semenya until they do. They assert that until those test are completed, she is i9neligible to run either in South Africa or internationally.
Athletics South Africa acting chief Ray Mali asked "for the patience of Semenya and her advisers in the interest of all parties."
But I ask the question, how patient would you be if you were in Semenya's pumps?
She wants to run and get better with the Olympics only two years away and she's being forced to sit on the sidelines until some Monaco based bureaucrats make a decision?
To add to the drama, how patient would you be if your gender identity were subjected to worldwide speculation, attacks and derision while you're waiting for that sporting bureaucratic decision?
And while you're waiting, you sit with the knowledge that your potential competition you destroyed in Berlin are competing and honing their skills against each other.
"Some of the occurrences leading up to and immediately following the Berlin World Championships have infringed on not only my rights as an athlete," she said, "but also my fundamental and human rights, including my rights to dignity and privacy."
It's time for the IAAF medical team to end this, and get off their behinds and complete the medical verification tests as expeditiously as possible.
And after that happens, I'll be rooting for Semenya to kick some butt in every 800m race she runs from now until the Olympic Games in London and beyond.
The eyes of the world were turned toward Cape Town for the draw setting up the groups for the upcoming FIFA World Cup Tournament in South Africa this summer.
I was interested along with the die hard soccer fans here in the States to see where Team USA would end up.
The soccer gods were smiling on us this time. Team USA ended up in Group C. The host South Africans ended up in Group A.
Group A
South Africa
Mexico
Uruguay
France
Group B
Argentina
Nigeria
Korea Republic
Greece
Group C
England
USA
Algeria
Slovenia
Group D
Germany
Australia
Serbia
Ghana
Group E
Netherlands
Denmark
Japan
Cameroon
Group F
Italy
Paraguay
New Zealand
Slovakia
Group G
Brazil
North Korea
Cote d'Ivoire
Portugal
Group H
Spain
Switzerland
Honduras
Chile
Top two teams out of each group advance. The 'Group of Death' for this tournament looks to be Group G. Frankly, any group Brazil is involved in is a 'Group of Death'.
The Brits may be salivating because they consider us and everybody else in Group C pushovers, but may I remind y'all about the 1950 'Miracle On Grass'.
It was a World Cup game in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in which a ragtag USA amateur team beat a heavily favored English squad 1-0 in one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history. England ended up losing their next match to Spain by the same 1-0 score and failing to qualify for the next round.
England is our opening Group C match in the 2010 World Cup, and our guys are eager to atone for the poor showing in the 2006 World Cup.
Can another 'Miracle on Grass' happen? As former NFL coach Herman Edwards once said, "That's why you play the games.'
The US team we have now actually has far more talent than the 1950 one did and is actually ranked number 14 in the world. They won their CONCACAF Group and have qualified for six consecutive World Cup tournaments.
Translation, we won't be sneaking up on anybody, and any team that falls asleep on us does so at their peril.
The group play matches commence next June. Ought to be a fun few weeks.
They traveled to San Pedro Sula and beat Honduras 3-2 last night in a critical qualification match from the North and Central America and Caribbean (CONCACAF) region to clinch a spot in next year's FIFA World Cup which will be held in South Africa.
Team USA had to work for it. After a scoreless first half, in the 47th minute the Hondurans jumped out to a 1-0 lead on the first of two goals by Julio Cesar De Leon. He scored again in the 78th minute to narrow the Catrachos deficit to 3-2.
Team USA erased the deficit by scoring 3 consecutive goals to take a 3-1 lead in the match. In the 55th minute Conor Casey scored the first of his two goals and added his second one in the 66th minute Team USA captain Landon Donovan added another in the 71st minute.
Honduras kept coming at them. They were 8-0 at home in qualifying and had been undefeated in 17 games at San Pedro Sula since June 2003.
They had a bicycle kick by Mauricio Sabillon in the 82nd minute that would have tied the match sail over the crossbar. Another golden opportunity in the 87th minute to tie the game on a Carlos Pavon penalty kick, but it sailed over the crossbar.
“We’re very proud,” U.S. coach Bob Bradley said. “We understand the responsibility we have every time we step on the field for our fans, for our country.”
This is the sixth straight time the USA Mens team has qualified for the World Cup, but unlike our women, have no championships to show for it. They are eager for the opportunity to atone for the disappointing 2006 World Cup showing in Germany and show the world that our men can play quality football.
South Africa is considered a safe haven on the African continent for other GLBT people persecuted in their homelands and because its constitution specifically bars discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Most of the time, that's the case, but here's the tragic story of Daisy, a transwoman who escaped Zimbabwe with her accepting mother only to die a violent death in South Africa simply for daring to be herself.
This star crossed edition of the Commonwealth Games has its opening ceremonies in Delhi, India today, but there will be one well known athlete who organizers and others were hoping would bring some star power to the event that won't be coming.
The South African sports authorities want to save her for more high profile events such as the 2011 IAAF Athletics World Championships and the London Olympics. 
