Does it matter if Semenya had unfair advantage?

The report that South African runner Caster Semenya has been put on a suicide watch is not surprising, given what the 18-year-old has been put through in the past couple of weeks.

Rather than the accolades she expected for her convincing victory in an 800-metre race in Berlin in August, she has been subjected to nasty speculation and leaked reports that she is not really a woman.

Why the fuss? I can tell you already that Semenya is a freak of nature, regardless of whether she has, as reports leaked to the Australian media indicate, both male and female characteristics.

I know she is a freak because normal people don't usually succeed as elite athletes. And the tragedy in Semenya's case is that she is being publicly humiliated to ensure that she doesn't have an unfair advantage over women who wouldn't be where they are if they weren't born with an unfair advantage over everybody else.

Despite all the lip service we give to fair play and honest effort, what we actually reward is not hard work or determination, but success.

This is true not just in sports but in most aspects of life.

In sports, that means that to the genetically blessed go the spoils. Elite athletes are not like you and me. Not like me, anyway. Look at Michael Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.

He is abnormally tall at six feet, four inches, with a long thin torso that offers low drag and short legs. He has long arms and ultra-flexible ankles that allow him to whip his big feet -- size 14 -- that act like fins.

He also trained most of his life, because a coach noticed his potential early on, potential that was based on what he was born with, not what he achieved.

Phelps's body is uniquely suited to his sport. So it is with most others.

Shaquille O'Neal is a multi-millionaire instead of a bodyguard wearing ill-fitting suits because of basketball, an arena where being jumbo-sized is an asset, where a seven-footer with size 23 shoes is just a little bigger than normal, rather than a total freak.

Women gymnasts are tiny. Distance runners are lean. Shot-putters are bulky.

Cyclist Miguel Indurain, who won the Tour de France five times, had huge lungs, so large that they distended his stomach into a trademark paunch.

Is any of this fair?

None of these athletes would have gotten where they are without training, of course, without focusing on their sports with a single-minded obsession.

But other would-be stars are similarly obsessed. They also dream of standing on the podium and having a medal hung around their neck while their national anthem plays.

Many of them also sacrifice everything else to train, only to find that because they aren't quite as physically suited to their sport, not quite as "talented," they are left on the bench, they can't get the coaching or access to funding.

At the elite level in Canada, funding has increasingly been focused on winners, with less available for athletes struggling to make the grade.

That may give our most talented a better chance of making the podium, but it reinforces the message that the only thing that really matters is winning.

To win, you need to start with an unfair advantage.

Maybe Semenya has one, but I'm still not sure it matters.

After the controversy surfaced in August, she told South Africa's You Magazine: "God made me the way I am and I accept myself."

cmcinnes@vancouversun.com