RP sprinter runs as man and woman
RP sprinter runs as man and woman
MANILA (Reuter): A Filipino sprinter embroiled in a long- running gender row has stumped the country's sports officials by competing in provincial athletic meets as both a man and a woman.
The recent two races as man and woman by Nancy Navalta, billed last year by Manila newspapers as Asia's next sprint champion, has placed sports officials in a quandary after she qualified for the National Games in April.
And if Navalta runs at least as fast in the women's 100-meter at the national titles, the matter of gender will become an Olympic issue.
The 18-year-old ran a hand-timed 11.42 seconds last week in the 100m which would qualify her for the women's race at the Atlanta Olympic Games which begin on July 19.
International Amateur Athletics Federation rules state if a female clocks 11.44 seconds or better and wins her national championship she qualifies.
Navalta, who hails from a poor region in the northern Philippines, won the 100m and 200m women's races at a local athletics contest last week in Pangasinan province and finished fourth in the men's 100m a few weeks ago. In the 200m Navalta clocked 24.05 seconds.
"I don't think she would allowed to take part (in the national games) because a lot of protests would be fielded against her," Go Teng Kok, president of the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association (PATAFA), told Reuters yesterday.
Go said Navalta was allowed to run both as a man and a woman because the results of her gender tests conducted in 1995 by the Philippine Center for Sports Medicine (PCSM) have not been released to PATAFA officials.
"I am a full woman. I fervently believe that," Navalta told a Manila news conference last year when the controversy first broke. Local sports doctors who ran the tests last year said privately that Navalta is clearly a male.
She is currently in seclusion in her hometown in La Union province 250 km (155 miles) north of Manila.
Philippines sports officials said the gender results had been sent to the International Olympic Committee but they had not heard back from the ruling body.