Should we question the creator for the way the so-called levels of testosterone are in our bodies?
By Luke MM.
I just learnt that two teenage athletes Beatrice Masilingi & Christine Mboma have been withdrawn from the 400m races for the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The two have been practicing and in the past days they have been breaking one record after the other and setting personal best records in the process. But this was not because they were alone, they had other athletes who at times were left behind as if they were not in the same race.
This however has prompted the World Athletics board to withdraw them from the 400m race respectively.
Taking a look at the two athletes, who am sure were raised in the rural parts and knowing our African culture they grew up doing some chores that could be deemed as training in some way. Imaging having to walk from to and from school every day and the school would be at least 2-3 kilometres away from home for maybe 8/9 months.
That is exercising on its own level and compared to their peers that they competed with during these sessions in Europe who probably started training when they got informed that they qualified to go to the Olympics.
They cannot outperform them in anyway, 400m is nothing as compared to what they have done before.
Their journey did not start now, did this World Athletics board ever heard of the day when Beatrice Masilingi ran barefoot in the preparation of the COSASSA Athletics games and the private community had to come to her rescue donating sportswear for her to compete in Zambia.
They don’t know that or maybe if they know they still didn’t give a damn to try and know who it was.
They are making these teenage girls question their true self because being told you cannot do this because we suspect you are not exactly who you say you are or to have science determine who you are might be confusing for these little ones.
When it happened to Caster Semenya a few years back which led to her not being allowed to take part in some of the disciplines many African nations did not see it as something they were supposed to fight and today it has happened again and it’s in Namibia again the continent will not come to the party to defend their girl child.
It got me wondering whether this is not some form of body shaming in some way, because these girls will either leave the Olympics victors or their will be two African girls left without any selfesteem
due to the fact that some people decided to use science to demoralise them.
I wonder what would have happened if African nations had decided to vote against Laurel Hubbard who is hailed as the first transgender to participate at the Olympics, we would have been called all sorts of names and in the end fined and made to make public apologies, BUT we mind our own business and create our very own supersonic sprinters who give them headaches making them think of rules to stop them from making headlines simply because they are from Africa.
The training of an African child does not start when they go to school it starts when they are young making their mental and physical ability strong to be able to comprehend things that some of these
European kids struggle with especially when it comes to sports. Our stamina we get it from the work we do in the field and all the physical build comes from the time we spend in the fields ploughing every other rainy season and the food we eat which is not diluted by anything.
This boils down to how the Namibian National Olympic Committee responded to the matter, in my opinion it surely shows that they are in some way accepting that our athletes are in the wrong.
Should we blame nature or question the creator for the way the so-called levels of testosterone are in their bodies. Remember I mentioned and asked if this was not another form of body shaming because
psychologically it will affect the athletes to a point, they will fail to perform in the events they are told they can participate.
This issue of testosterone is only a problem to African athletes and never affects the other race. One might ask themselves, why question the levels now. Is it because they have set and broke a little too many records for young Africans or there is more to it?
It baffles me as to how as Africans we have been allowing these sporting bodies to try and dictate how our female athletes should be. Allowing them to try and alter how our female athletes’ bodies are naturally simply because they cannot compete with them.
Is it because we don’t have sportsmen and women who can come and stand in the gap and probably rectify these rules as Africans and not wait for our children’s dreams to be shattered in the last-minute like this? They will need some psychological therapy for them to be able to go past this phase they have been subjected to and if we do not stand up as Africans against these types of inhumane practices, we will continue raising our kids to do better in sports only to be told your testosterone levels are too
high you cannot participate here.
