Check Out This 'Chick'

She wore pants instead of a skirt to school, played soccer with the boys and was teased about her masculine looks.

Caster Semenya learned to ignore the taunts. She ran alone across a landscape of high grasses dotted with rocky hills.

She came almost out of nowhere to win the world championship in the 800 meters Wednesday in Berlin, far and away the fastest woman on the track.

Her time of 1 minute, 55.45 seconds was more than 2 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, but now Semenya's gender is the subject of an international investigation.

Even before Berlin, track officials were taking a closer look at the 18-year-old runner, following her performance last month at an international meet where she improved her personal bests in the 800 and 1,500 meters by huge margins.

Her family is outraged at suggestions that Semenya, who has a muscular build and a deep voice, isn't a woman.

"That's how God made her," Semenya's cousin, Evelyn Sekgala, told The Associated Press. "We brought her up in a way that when people start making fun of her, she shouldn't get upset." "She is my little girl. ... I raised her and I have never doubted her gender," her father told the Sowetan newspaper. "She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times."

The International Amateur Athletic Federation asked the South African athletic federation to conduct the gender test after Semenya burst onto the scene by posting a world-leading time of 1:56.72 in the 800 at the African junior championships in Bambous, Mauritius, on July 31. Her previous best was 2:00.58.

The test, which takes weeks to complete, requires a physical medical evaluation, and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender.

Gender testing used to be mandatory for female athletes at the Olympics, but the screenings were dropped in 1999. One reason for the change was not all women have standard female chromosomes. In addition, there are cases of people who have ambiguous genitalia or other congenital conditions.