OR Tambo is more chaotic than usual this morning, according to Kevin McCallum, my Twitter addicted source who?s lodged at South Africa?s kleptomania nerve centre for the arrival of the victorious athletics contingent from Berlin. With memories of Beijing still fading scars on the South African sporting psyche, it?s been a delightful surprise to have a team return home ? even if excitement has been fuelled by the square-jawed scandal surrounding Caster Semanya.

It?s a while since a South African athlete has stormed the front pages quite so comprehensively; you?d have to go back to Zola Budd for anything approaching the same extent. But not anything like the same content: for headline-grabbers, suggesting that the winner of a women?s race has an Adam?s apple and a collection of Y fronts is always going to offer morbid tabloid fascination.

The obvious question that?s been flying around since Australians ? well-versed themselves in the blurred boundary between genders ? planted a couple of media stories raising questions about Semanya, is how hard it really can be to make a definitive call. Yes, there might be a broad pair of shoulders and a hint of a third Williams sister to the new world champion, but there are one or two fundamentals, surely, that don?t make this quite the physiological conundrum the IAAF has spun it into?

But further tests are apparently underway (if Semenya got through the entire ?Sex and The City? movie, understands the need for scatter cushions, and can listen to an entire Katie Melua album without being overcome with nausea, she apparently passes with flying colours), the devious suits at the IAAF determined to spin this out as excruciatingly as possible. Which is vile treatment for Semenya (and a wonderful opportunity for South African politicians to latch on the cause with self-aggrandising glee) ? and all the more reason for the rest of us to celebrate Semenya, and give her the support a world champion deserves.

She?s not the only one deserving of thunderous applause, Mbulaeni Mulaudzi the other golden achiever in what was a marvellous celebration of athletics in Berlin.

The Germans might not boast quite the depth they did while the wall ran through the city, but Berlin has lost none of its passion for athletics, and the support for the World Championships was a glowing endorsement of the city has a home for track and field.

Berlin?s reward? Semanya?s eye-catching performance was one, but the star, by some distance, was the man who?s making a lazy mockery of the art of sprinting. Improbably tall, with a loping gait, and the ability to run faster than any other man in history without appearing to make an ounce of effort, Usain Bolt might just be the single most extraordinary athlete the planet has yet seen. Particularly as he?s absolutely convinced he can go faster still.

Woods, Federer, Armstrong, Phelps, Schumacher ? we?ve seen some remarkable human beings take sport to unprecedented levels in recent years. But Bolt is something else entirely, seizing the mantle of fastest man alive in a blur of speed and drama hitherto unseen. Semanya?s saga will linger a little longer, sadly, neither the IAAF nor opportunistic politicians helping her cause; while history will hopefully afford her a more graceful legacy, it?s the Usain Bolt story that was Berlin?s star attraction. Every now and again someone comes along and redefines a sport; sprinting?s new definition is the preserve of a man who looks like he might, just perhaps, turn out to be the greatest athlete ever.

  • Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za