South African Caster Semenya could keep her women's 800 metres world title even if she fails a gender test, International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) spokesman Nick Davies said on Thursday.

The 18-year-old has been at the centre of a storm since it was revealed on Wednesday that she had undergone gender tests in South Africa and was undergoing more in Berlin.

However, Davies said there was a distinction to be made over gender verification and being caught doping.

"Legally if you are found to be of a different sex to that declared that is not cheating," said Davies.

"Doping is an attempt to defraud and is cheating. So it is not necessarily the case that she would be stripped of her medal. It is a very delicate matter."

Davies revealed that the South African athletics federation had not been impressed by the way the matter had been handled.

"There have been heated and frank discussions at the highest level," he added.

"They (the federation) believe she has done nothing wrong, that she was eligible to run and we should have left it alone."

Davies said that any decision would be taken after serious consultation with experts and the results of the tests.

"She will undergo a series of tests including gynaecological and psychological," he said.

"The decision will be taken very carefully with a group of experts."

Davies, who said that she would have been tested throughout her career and was under IAAF auspices when she competed in last year's Junior Commonwealth Games, said that the decision to pull her from the medalists press conference on Wednesday had been the IAAF's.

The IAAF's secretary general Pierre Weiss stood in instead.

"Imagine her aged 18 up there on the stage fielding questions, it's hard enough for me at my age," said Davies.

"We took the decision in her interests and it is not something we do lightly."

The IAAF's actions, though, have sparked outrage in South Africa with even the ruling party the African National Party getting involved.

"We call on all South Africans to rally behind our golden girl and shrug off negative and unwarranted questions about her gender," the ANC said.

Semenya's 80-year-old grandmother Maphuthi Sekgala told The Times that the first year sports science student had long been teased about her boyish looks and for being the only girl in her local soccer team.

"(The controversy) doesn't bother me that much because I know she's a woman - I raised her myself," she said in her rural village in northern Limpopo province.

"She called me after (the heats) and told me that they think she's a man. What can I do when they call her a man, when she's really not a man? It is God who made her look that way."

There have been precedents in such cases, the most famous being that of Polish athletics great Stella Walsh (also known as Stanislawa Walasiewicz) who won Olympic gold in the 100 yards at the 1932 Olympics and silver in the same event in the 1936 Olympics here in Berlin.

However, after she was shot dead during an armed robbery in 1980, the subsequent autopsy revealed she possessed male genitalia, although she also had female characteristics as well.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) have now dropped gender determination tests.