SA Athletics Chair Can Keep Job

The head of South Africa's athletics commission will keep his job after admitting to lying about his role in gender testing on runner Caster Semenya. The Athletics South Africa council confirmed that Leonard Chuene would keep his post during a closed-door meeting on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Chuene repeatedly denied that Semenya had undergone gender testing in South Africa prior to her competition at the International Athletics Association Federation World Championships in Berlin. Semenya won the 800-meter championship race this summer with the fastest time clocked in the world in 2009 by a woman. Officials for the competition ordered a gender test for her prior to the final round of the race. Such tests are usually kept confidential, and the IAAF was condemned after Semenya's case was made public.

Public figures and government officials including those from the federal sports ministry and members of the Democratic Alliance party called for Chuene to step down.

Neither the IAAF nor the ASA have confirmed media reports from Australia that Semenya lacks ovaries and a uterus. Early reports also show that she has higher testosterone levels than average women of the same age.