Athletics South Africa acting head Ray Mali said in a statement Tuesday that the IAAF assured him it would complete the process quickly and asked ASA to not allow Semenya to run “until the process has run its course.”

Mali had been awaiting a response from the IAAF on whether it would clear Semenya to run Tuesday at a meet in Stellenbosch.

Semenya has not run competitively since winning the women’s 800 at the 2009 world championships in Berlin. Her dramatic improvement in times and muscular build led the IAAF to order gender tests.
 
Diamond League showdowns drawing top talent — official

In Salvo,  North Carolina, Olympic and world champion Usain Bolt's 100 meters race with Jamaican compatriot Asafa Powell is proof the Diamond League will bring athletics to center stage, an official of the new circuit said on Monday.

According to Patrick Magyar, vice chairman of the Diamond League board and organizer of the Zurich meeting, the series will be for athletics what Formula One is to motor racing and the grand slam is to tennis.

"If you want to see the best, you are going to watch the Diamond League and the big championships," Magyar told Reuters by telephone from Switzerland.

Bolt and Powell, the current and former 100 meters world record holders, will go head-to-head July 16 in Paris, organizers said on Monday in the first announced key match-up for the Diamond League.

"There will be more," said Magyar, who was instrumental in forming the 14-meeting global circuit which launches May 14 in Doha.

Bolt, American record holder Tyson Gay and Powell — the three fastest men ever over 100 meters — are under contract to make seven Diamond League appearances with one guaranteed to compete in each of the 14 meetings.

Several competitions will feature two of the three sprinters and a select few will headline all three.

"I will be racing Bolt at least three times or more," Gay has said.

New York, London and Brussels will be the sites, athletics sources have told Reuters. Of the three, only Bolt's New York appearance has been announced.

Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele, Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, US women's 400 meters sprinter Sanya Richards and Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlasic also will be part of the circuit.

Competitions in Shanghai, Oslo, Rome, New York, Eugene (Oregon), Lausanne, Gateshead, Paris, Monaco, Stockholm, London, Zurich and Brussels will follow Doha.

The series replaces the six-meeting, Europe-only Golden League circuit with the goal of expanding athletics globally and bringing more head-to-head competition to the sport.

"The Diamond League is the most auspicious change to one-day invitational meetings since I have been a meet director," said 27-year Prefontaine Classic organizer Tom Jordan of Eugene, Oregon. "It gives a coherence to what otherwise was a series of individual events."