SA athlete Semenya aims to win Olympic gold after 2009 gender furor

London, July 16 (ANI): South African athlete Caster Semenya, whose masculine look and testosterone levels caused a stir back in 2009, said she aims to win a gold medal in the Olympics in a world record time.

"My plan is to win the Olympics. It's a very simple plan - to win my first Olympic final in a world record time," The Telegraph quoted Semenya, as saying.

Just hours before the women's 800m final of the 2009 World Championship in Berlin, it emerged that Semenya had undergone examinations to confirm her gender.

"I was the favourite to win in Berlin, but I was very lonely," she said.

"I knew what the newspapers were writing about me and what was being said on TV, but I did not care, "she said.

"I knew what my job was - I wrote down my plans for the various heats, one by one, 'this is how the semi final should be run' and so on, and also the final," she added.

Semenya missed nearly a year of competition while her most personal statistics were pored over by a medical panel convened by the international athletics authorities.

She was finally cleared to resume competing in July 2010, only for her return to be plagued by injury.

Semenya reclaims the story, with a hint of defiance, and sits up. "What happened in Berlin and afterwards is history to me, we can do something for the future but we cannot change the history," she said.

"I really did not want to stop running after what happened in Berlin, I really wanted to continue to run," she added. (ANI)