World champ Semenya to miss Games

“It is our medical view that physically and emotionally she would not be capable of doing justice to her talent at an event of this magnitude,” Team South Africa chief medical officer Shuaib Manjra said in the statement.

CWG organisers were hoping Semenya will add glamour to the track event already decimated by the pull-outs of Usain Bolt,Asafa Powell,Phillips Idowu,David Rudisha and John Steffensen.

The Games could ill afford the loss of Semenya. With a long list of high-profile absentees and more security-and health-related withdrawals potentially on the horizon,she would have been among the Games’ biggest drawcards.

The intrigue surrounding her comeback from a gender investigation dominated the European track season and,despite inconsistent results that led to her ranking slipping to fifth,her appearance in New Delhi has been eagerly anticipated — not least by television rights-holders lamenting the Games’ dwindling star power.

Seme previously sparked fears that Semenya might not appear in New Delhi when he told reporters on Monday “her back has been troubling her in training”.

South African men’s world champion 800m runner Mbulaeni Mulaudzi also will not be coming. Mulaudzi,who won men’s 800m gold in the Berlin World Championships last year and a silver winner in the 2004 Athens Olympics,has a nagging back injury problem.