Semenya on a gem of a run

OSLO - Caster Semenya has shrugged off the controversy over her gender and has now targeted a successful Diamond League campaign in the run-up to the attempted defence of her world 800m title in August.

The 20-year-old stormed to victory in the 2009 World Athletics Championships but was cast into limbo soon after because of allegations over her true gender.

The South African was revealed to be a hermaphrodite after the leaking of test results following her 800m win in Berlin.

The incident sparked anger from the South African public and government, who rallied behind the athlete, and sparked a major gender review by the IAAF, which introduced new eligibility rules for women athletes with excessive male hormones in April, a medical condition known as hyperandrogenism.

Semenya was cleared to compete as a woman in July last year, nearly a year after she shot to prominence.

"It wasn't easy to come back after the IAAF ban, but this was the goal," Semenya admitted ahead of today's Bislett Games in Oslo, the fifth of the 14-leg IAAF Diamond League series.

The race today will be Semenya's third of the season: she won an IAAF Challenge event in Dakar and then finished second at the Diamond League race in Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday.

"The first 150m were too slow and I made some other minor mistakes," she said of her Eugene outing, undertaken despite a 34-hour trip to the US from her homeland. But Semenya managed to dip under the 1min:59sec mark, which made her second fastest in the world this year.

And she seems to be slowly getting back to the amazing form she displayed in 2009 when she clocked a jaw-dropping personal best of 1:55.45 to win gold at the world champs.

"In Oslo, I want to remain below 1:58, maybe 1:57, but everything happens with an eye on the World Championships in South Korea."

She will face a tough outing at Bislett, with former world champ and Olympic silver medallist Janeth Jepkosgei of Kenya in the field.