Fairness in sports, A myth we can’t ignore
Published on July 10, 2025 | By Luyanda Mtshali
People often forget how biology and genetics work. In our rush to define fairness in sport, we sometimes overlook the most fundamental truth of athletic competition which is the fact that humans are not born equal and sport thrives on those differences.
Across the world, different regions have produced athletes who dominate specific sports ¬ because of politics, favouritism, or cheating but because of a combination of genetics, environment, and culture. East Africa has been renounced for their ability to produce elite long-distance runners. West Africans and their descendants in the diaspora dominate sprinting events. Northern European countries excel in winter sports. This is not a coincidence but rather it’s biology, history and evolution working hand in hand. It’s the human body adapting across centuries to climate, terrain and survival.
And yet, when it comes to African women, particularly Black African women, this understanding suddenly gets blurry for many. Instead of acknowledging their natural advantages, we often see suspicion, regulation and exclusion. Why?
Take Caster Semenya, a South African middle-distance runner and Olympic gold medalist. She has been the target of invasive testing, harsh rules, and global scrutiny and it is not because she doped or broke the rules but because her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than what governing bodies have deemed “acceptable” for female athletes. She has never cheated. She has never sought an unfair advantage. She was simply born the way she is.
Christine Mboma, a Namibian sprinter, burst onto the scene by earning a silver medal in the 200m at the Tokyo Olympics at just 18 years old. Her rise was meteoric but short-lived. Like Semenya, Mboma was also flagged and restricted because of her naturally high testosterone levels, a trait she had no control over. Since then, she has struggled and not because she lost her talent but because she has been forced to medically alter her body in order to keep competing. She has effectively been turned into a lab rat, stripped of autonomy and agency in the name of “levelling the playing field.”
But what is fairness in sport, really?
We don’t question Michael Phelps' unusually long wingspan or his lower-than-average lactic acid levels. We celebrate Usain Bolt’s rare combination of height, stride length, and explosive power. We admire Simone Biles for her compact size and her ability to defy gravity. These athletes are exceptional precisely because they were born with traits that set them apart from the average. That’s the essence of elite sport: to showcase what the most exceptional bodies can do.
Yet when Black women are born with unique traits like higher natural testosterone, they’re punished. When their bodies don’t conform to Western standards of femininity or biological norms, they are subjected to bans, surgeries or hormone-suppressing treatments. Let’s be clear: this isn’t about fairness. It’s about control. It’s about discomfort with the diversity of African bodies, and especially African female bodies.
Caster’s fight isn’t about her sexual orientation. It’s about her right to be treated as a human being. Her fight is about autonomy, dignity, and equality. It’s about the centuries-old discomfort the world has with Black women—with their strength, their presence, their power, and their defiance of expectations.
We’re not talking about athletes who have doped or gamed the system. We’re talking about women who were born different, who trained like everyone else, and who succeeded. And instead of celebrating them, we punished them.
If we really want to have a conversation about fairness maybe we should be asking: Should there be a height limit in basketball? Should we ban tall high-jumpers? Should longer-limbed swimmers be disqualified for having a biomechanical advantage? No, we don’t suggest those things—because we understand that every athlete brings something unique to their discipline.
So why is it that when African women bring their uniqueness, it suddenly becomes a problem?
Let’s be honest: it’s not about fairness, it’s about fear. Fear of what it means when African women break records, dominate podiums and challenge the visual and biological status quo of what a female athlete is "supposed" to look like. It’s about discomfort with Black excellence, with African success, and with the idea that not all women fit neatly into binary, Eurocentric boxes.
And it’s time we face that.
Respect Black women. Respect African athletes. Respect the diversity of human bodies. Elite sport was never meant to be a place where everyone is the same. It was meant to be a place where the best of the best in all their difference(s), rise to the top. If we keep punishing people for being born different, we aren’t protecting the integrity of sport but instead we’re destroying it.
Stop shifting the goal posts to favour skill and disqualify naturally occurring talent
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