Paddy Power have paid out on their Caster Semenya market following reports that the controversial athlete is a hermaphrodite.
The South African shot to stardom with a runaway success in the 800m at the recent World Championship but there has been a major dispute over whether she should even have been eligible to participate in the women's event.
The IAAF’s demands for a gender test on last month’s gold medallist prompted betting on the likely result with Paddy Power originally offering ‘hermaphrodite’ at 10/1 - a price that was backed down to 11/2. Revelations that the results suggest the South African is both male and female has led to the bookie declaring the race over in the hope of settling pub debates raging across the land once and for all.
Paddy Power also reports that punters had overwhelmingly backed Semenya being revealed as a man at odds of 7/4 with more than three times as many bets taken than those wagered on Semenya being all woman at odds of 1/2.
Paddy Power said: "Debate has raged around the world as to whether Semenya was a man or a woman but now it seems that those punters who hedged their bets and went for a bit of both are the ones who are going to be cock-a-hoop about the result.
"However there does still appear to be some confusion so we may yet be forced to pay out bets on male or female as well."
The bookie is also betting on whether Semenya will win 800m gold at the 2012 Olympics - offering 10/3 for victory in the women’s event and 5000/1 the South African wins the men’s two lap race.
