[New York, November 1. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 01: Runners compete in the 40th ING New York City Marathon on November 1, 2009 in the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

After winning the silver medal in the 800 m at the Asian Championships in July 2006, Soundarajan was asked to undergo sex testing. Soundarajan had won the same medal the previous year, and in college she set the Indian record for the women's 3,000-m steeplechase, but officials were at the Asian Games became suspicious she was using performance enhancing drugs. Soundarajan was tested, and she failed.

Soundarajan was later diagnosed with androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), Time magazine reports. People with AIS are genetically male, but their bodies do not recognize the male sex hormones, including testosterone. This leads their bodies to appear externally female, although their chromosomes tell a different story. Soundarajan reportedly attempted suicide after she was stripped of her silver medal, but she denies these allegations. She has, however, quit running, and there is little chance she will ever return to the track. "I am physically and mentally broken," she says.

Soundarajan now works as a coach. "It was difficult but now finally I feel O.K.," she said in a recent interview. "I like to train children who have not much money but lots of talent. I am living my dream through them."

But she hopes that Semenya will fight back where she was could not. "She should not let them take away her medal," Soundarajan says. "She is a woman and that's it, full stop. A gender test cannot take away from you who you are."

Gender And Athletics: India's Own Caster Semenya [Time]

The 18-year-old Semenya is slated to run the 800m for South Africa in tonight's World Championships, but, says Australian newspaper The Age, her "physique and powerful style have sparked speculation in recent months that she may not be entirely female." An International Association of Athletics Federations spokesman says, "At this moment in time we do not have any evidence to stop her running," but according to the Daily Mail, gender testing has already begun. Some say she could still be disqualified.

Perhaps even more disturbing than subjecting a runner to medical tests for no other reason than her physical appearance and athletic prowess is her coach Michael Seme's reaction to all this. He says,

We understand that people will ask questions because she looks like a man. It's a natural reaction and it's only human to be curious. People probably have the right to ask such questions if they are in doubt. But I can give you the telephone numbers of her room-mates in Berlin. They have already seen her naked in the showers and she has nothing to hide.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with "looking like a man" — if, for instance, you're transgender. But for a coach to say it of a teenage athlete who has always identified as female is pretty insensitive. He should be protecting her from the media's curiosity, not excusing it. And as far as his "showers" comment goes, even seeing her naked probably won't be enough to satisfy her critics. Says The Science of Sport (via Deadspin),

[E]ven genetic testing cannot confirm male or female. In fact, it is so complex that to do proper sex determination testing, you have to take a multi-disciplinary approach, and make use of internal medicine specialists, gynecologists, psychologists, geneticists and endocrinologists. I am afraid that dropping your pants is not proof at all.

As we pointed out last summer, gender testing is invasive, and can result in disqualifying athletes who are intersexed or have chromosomal abnormalities. Whether or not these abnormalities make women better runners is another question, but they don't make them into men. Deadspin's Tommy Craggs has a good point when he wonders what "entirely female" even means in the context of sports. The IAAF and other athletics governing bodies need to come up with a workable definition that's fair to intersexed athletes — and that definition shouldn't be "looks feminine to us and isn't threateningly good." Unfortunately, that's the definition Semenya's being subjected to — and her coach isn't helping.

She's The Man? [Deadspin]
World Athletics Sensation: Claims Emerge That South Africa's Female 800m Hope Caster Semenya Is Really A MAN! [Daily Mail]
Caster Semenya - Is She Really A He? [morethanthegames]
IAAF Isn't Sure South African Runner Is Female [AP, via MSNBC]
Athlete Could Be Disqualified Over Gender Doubts [The Age]
Is She Really a HE? Women's 800m Gold Medal Favourite Takes Gender Test Hours Before World Championship Race [Daily Mail]
Caster Semenya's Sex In Doubt, As Reports Of Sex Testing And Potential Disqualification Surface [The Science of Sport]

Earlier: Beijing Officials To Test Female Olympic Hopefuls For Sex Abnormalities

The final photo in the 7-image slide show features Palin posing jauntily in vaguely ill-fitting shorts and a red zip-up with one elbow resting carelessly on the flag, which has been draped over the back of a chair. Palin has clearly mastered the standard celebrity red carpet pose (one leg bent slightly, body tilted, hand on the hip, face at a slight angle), but for once, people are not talking about her short shorts or slight body. All attention is now on the colorful cloth prop, with the question: Is it wrong to treat the symbol of America is such a manner?


The left-leaning website Daily Kos weighs in on the possible flag controversy:

The moment I noticed the manner in which the flag had been positioned for the shoot, I had a moment of cognitive dissonance: here was a GOP governor who goes out of her way to make her patriotism an important part of her public appeal, engaging in treatment of the flag that is blatantly a faux pas, especially (but certainly not only) in many circles within the culture of the GOP base in which Palin's politics are rooted.

In order to prove the point, the Daily Kos writer looks up the official code of conduct with regards to the American flag. They most likely found this Wikipedia page, which specifies that the flag must never be "drawn back or bunched up in any way." Also, the flag should never "be used as 'wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery', or for covering a speaker's desk, draping a platform, or for any decoration in general (exception for coffins)," another rule that Palin has violated.

Andrew Sullivan from The Atlantic recently posted this picture, from the Palin Calendar for 2008, which was sent to him by a reader. The tipster writes:

In the summer of 1998, Monica Lewinsky did a photo shoot for Vanity Fair which had her pose provocatively with the American flag. Maureen Dowd was livid at the time ("There's something sickening about a young woman who vamps with the American flag, mocking her role as the silent center of a case that could bring down a president") and Walter Shapiro was still steaming about it months later ("She displayed execrable judgment in posing on a beach with an American flag for Vanity Fair. Her vanity duly engaged—as whose would not be?—Monica lacked the maturity to balk at the magazine's tasteless choice of props.")

Unsurprisingly, this is the sort of thing that is given a pass when it is done by members of the appropriate party, but treated as a capital offense when the other side tries it.

However, this sort of selective patriotism and outrage seems like it goes hand-and-hand with flag waving in general. Yesterday, Timothy Egan's New York Times blog delved into the politics of the flag, which has been recently embraced in blue states like California and New York, states that had been shying away from "overt displays of patriotism" in previous years. Now that Obama is president, Timothy Egan argues, the flag is making a comeback among the liberals, including the President himself, who has started wearing his flag pin on his lapel once more. Egan criticizes the "situational flag waving" that many seem to engage in, and mentions several instances of republican sore losers turning their backs on the red, white, and blue:

At the same time, in deep red states like Texas, where secession talk heated up in the first months of the Obama presidency, there has been a passionate public embrace of the vaunted Lone Star flag, symbol of independence dating to the days of the Republic of Texas. Incidentally, the blue in that flag stands for loyalty, as defined by state code.

In this cooling of nationalistic ardor, Texans are little different from those who felt left out during the previous eight years, including Obama. After George W. Bush won his second term, a Web retailer started selling "the official flag of the United Blue States of America," which had 20 stars – one for each of the 19 states, and the District of Columbia, that went Democratic in 2004.

According to this analysis, Palin should probably start posing with the Alaskan flag soon, else she falls behind red state trends.

Although the issue of the flag-used-as-prop has probably become the most interesting thing about Palin's Runner's World interview, there are a few other choice quotes included in the piece. Palin describes an embarrassing fall she suffered when running with the Secret Service on John McCain's ranch, shares her tips for running in the cold (layering), mentions briefly the origin of her son's name ("I named him Track for running"), and laughs at McCain's favorite form of exercise ("he said, 'I go wading,' Wading... That cracked me up"). Palin also issues a challenge to President Obama to come to Alaska and run against her. Even though she would never play him in basketball, since she doesn't want to lose to him again—"he towers over me and I wouldn't be complaining about an unfair advantage there, but..."—Palin admits she would like to run against Obama. "I betcha I'd have more endurance," she said.

I'm A Runner: Sarah Palin [Runner's World]
Palin Treats The American Flag Disrespectfully [Daily Kos]
United States Flag Code [Wikipedia]
The Flag And Palin [The Daily Dish]
The Other Palin Profile [Politico]
Palin: I'd Come Out Ahead In Run Against Obama [Brattleboro Reformer]
Capture The Flag [NYT]

[Manchester, May 17. Image via Getty]

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MAY 17: Start of the women's 150m 'A' final during the Bupa Great City Games on May 17, 2009 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images)

Women were not allowed to run the Boston Marathon until 1972, and female runners faced discrimination throughout the '70s. Nina Kuscsik, the first woman to run in the New York Marathon and the first woman to win the Boston Marathon, tells the Times, "If I went out to run and it rained, the police would stop me ... They thought I was running away from something." Over the years, women have gradually gained respect in the sport, and proven that often they can outrun the men. In 1964 the record for the world's best marathon time was set by a man at 3:27:45, but today Paula Radcliffe holds the world record for women's marathon, with a time of 2:15:25. Many older women running today didn't take up the sport until later in life, like Imme Dyson, who started running when she was 47. Today at 72, she is still runs every day and dominates her age group in races and marathons. [NY Times]

U.S. 4x400 Teams' Gold Ends Spotty Performance By American Athletes [SF Chron]

[Image via AP.]

Bahrain's Roqaya al-Gassra, right, and Russia's Aleksandra Fedoriva compete in a women's 200-meter 2nd round heat during the athletics competitions in the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2008. (AP Photo/Greg Baker) — AP

Read more coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Related: The Only Games In Town [New Yorker]