800-Meter Champion Caster Semenya Joins Soccer Club in South Africa – runnersworld.com

• On Friday, Caster Semenya announced on Instagram that she has signed with the JVW Football Club, a national soccer club based in South Africa, for the 2020 season.
• According to a statement on the club’s site, Semenya played soccer at her school growing up.
• The switch to soccer comes after a series of rulings decided that Semenya will not be able to race distances 1500 meters or shorter unless she were to undergo testosterone suppression.

Two-time Olympic 800-meter champion Caster Semenya is taking her unbeatable speed to the pitch: On Friday, the middle distance star announced that she will be joining the JVW Football Club, a national soccer club based in Gauteng, South Africa.

“I am grateful for this opportunity, and I appreciate the love and support I already get from the team,” Semenya said in a statement the club posted on its website. “I am looking forward to this new journey, and hopefully I can contribute as much as I can to the club.”

[Smash your goals with a Runner’s World Training Plan, designed for any speed and any distance.]

According to the club’s announcement, Semenya will not be registered to compete for the team in the 2019 South African Football Association (SAFA) Sasol League, but she will train with the team with plans to make her debut during the 2020 season. Growing up in South Africa, Semenya played soccer at school in her youth and trained daily, according to the release.

“I welcomed her at her first training with the team on Tuesday, and was impressed to see that she definitely has all the fundamentals,” club captain Janine van Wyk said in the statement.

The transition to soccer follows a series of setbacks facing the South African track runner, who will not return in an attempt to defend her 800-meter title at the IAAF World Track and Field Championships in Doha, Qatar, which will begin later this month.

Semenya, who is assumed to be hyperandrogenic (meaning she naturally has levels of testosterone that exceed the “normal” limits) was faced with a ruling passed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that stated she needed to undergo hormone intervention to lower her testosterone levels in order to compete in distances that are 1500 meters and shorter.

The regulations were approved by the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) on May 1. Semenya and her legal team immediately filed an appeal of the CAS decision, arguing that the regulations are a “violation of human rights.”

While the appeal was pending, a Swiss Supreme Court allowed her to compete this summer without undergoing treatment. Her last race was on June 30 at the Prefontaine Classic, where she won the 800 meters in 1:55.70, well ahead of her competition.

In July, the Swiss Supreme Court reversed the ruling that allowed Semenya to compete internationally, meaning that she would need to undergo hormone suppression treatment in order to continue competing on the track.

“I am very disappointed to be kept from defending my hard-earned title, but this will not deter me from continuing my fight for the human rights of all female athletes concerned,” Semenya said in a statement following the decision.

Semenya is not the first professional track athlete to become a soccer player. Following retirement, eight-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt joined Norway’s Strømsgodset Toppfotball and Germany’s Borussia Dortmund before joining his final team, the Central Coast Mariners in Australia. His soccer career ended in January when he was unable to sign with a new team.

Contributing Writer Taylor Dutch is a freelance writer living in Chicago.