Ever since the South African broke through in 2009, when she won World Cup gold in the 800 meters in Berlin, she has fought for her right to compete as a woman.

It was after the breakthrough, as an 18-year-old, that the athletics world demanded that the fast-footed and muscular Semenya undergo gender tests.

In an interview with HBO Real Sports, which the news agency AP read, Semenya says that athletics leaders probably thought she had a penis.

-I told them I'm a woman, and if you want to see that I'm a woman, I can show you my vagina, okay?

says Semenya in the documentary.

"Who cut you with a knife"

The sex tests showed that the now 31-year-old runner is hyperandrogynous, that is, has too high levels of the male sex hormone testosterone.

The International Athletics Federation (WA) forced her to take medication to lower her testosterone levels so that she could continue competing as a woman.

But she did not feel well from the medication, which was probably birth control pills or something similar.

-They made me sick, I gained weight and had panic attacks.

I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

It was like stabbing yourself with a knife every day.

But I had no choice, she says.

-I was 18 years old, I wanted to run.

I wanted to go to the Olympics, that was the only thing that mattered.

I had to make it work.

Two Olympic golds

Semenya fulfilled her dream, twice over.

She won two Olympic gold medals in the 800 meters, in London in 2012 and in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Medical experts have called the coercive medication that Semenya was forced to undergo unethical.

But WA's lawyer Jonathan Taylor defends the medication in an interview with HBO Real Sports and says that leading experts prescribe medication for women active with too high testosterone levels.

-Jonathan must cut off his tongue and throw it away, says Semenya.

If he wants to understand how they (the drugs) have tortured me, he can take those drugs himself.

Then he will understand.

Aiming for the World Cup

In 2018, the WA decided that women athletes with too high testosterone levels must lower their levels in order to compete at distances between 400 meters and one English mile (1,609 meters).

WA believes that hyperandrogynia otherwise has a far too great advantage over medium distances.

Semenya has in recent years refused to take medication and has therefore not run an 800-meter race in international competition since 2019. She missed both the 2019 World Cup and the 2021 Olympics.

In any case, she has continued to run, but now longer distances.

In March, she broke her personal record of 3,000 meters by almost ten seconds.

She then said that she aims to qualify for the World Cup in Eugene in the USA this summer.

-I'm close.

It will happen if it happens, Semenya told reporters, according to the news agency AFP.

Semenya has also fought his case in court, and has lost twice - in the sports arbitration court Cas and in a Swiss court.

She has appealed a third time, now to the European Court of Human Rights.