The Namibian teenagers were prevented from running the 400m due to naturally occurring raised testosterone levels
“I don’t understand why people come up with stuff like that. I just don’t get it. It’s very cruel.” Beatrice Masilingi is 18, born and raised in Katima in the Zambezi region of Namibia. In Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium she was as excited as you might expect of any teenager who has barely raced outside her home country, who lists “my grandmother” as her key influence, and who had minutes earlier come cantering in behind Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to make the women’s 200m Olympic final.
If Masilingi was also a little wary, it is because she knows some part of the future is likely to take a difficult turn if she performs with the same level of grace and fire in Tuesday’s final. Masilingi is one of a pair of Namibian teenagers, schoolmates at Grootfontein Agricultural College, who have a serious chance of a medal in the blue-chip sprint event of these Olympic Games.
