Christine Mboma knows the faster she runs the clearer her advantages with difference in sex development become
Christine Mboma runs the 200 metres like no other elite sprinter in history. Her start is sluggish. Her drive phase needs work. But then her legs begin to whirr … and suddenly whoosh! One, two, three, four opponents are picked off. At the Olympics she flew from fifth with 50m left to win a silver medal. Last week she also added the Diamond League title in an Under-20 world record of 21.78 sec. What makes the 18-year-old’s achievements remarkable, aside from her age, is that she only began focusing on the 200m in July.
Given time, and better technique, Florence Griffith Joyner’s world record of 21.34 sec will fall. Yet Mboma is also increasingly faced with a devilish catch-22. The faster she runs, the more she provides evidence that she has an unfair advantage as an athlete with differences in sex development (DSD). Francine Niyonsaba, who won the women’s 5,000m Diamond League final has a similar dilemma.
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