An Olympian who ran so fast that an ex-sprinter questioned if she was 'definitely a woman' called her treatment by athletic authorities a 'very bad experience'

• Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi have hit out at the decision to ban them from the 400 meters at the Tokyo Olympics.
• The Namibian duo were banned due to having high levels of natural testosterone.
• Mboma, who won a 200 meter silver, called her treatment a "very bad experience."

Namibian athletes Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi have hit out at the decision to ban them from competing their preferred events at the Tokyo Olympics because of their high levels of natural testosterone.

Speaking last week, Masilingi called her treatment "hard to understand," while Mboma said she'd had a "very bad experience."

Mboma and Masilingi were both set to compete in the women's 400 meter event in the Tokyo Games, having dominated their respective qualifying tournaments in the build up to the Olympics.

Earlier in the year, Mboma broke the under-20 world record for the distance in 48.54 seconds, while Masilingi recorded a season's best of 49.53.

At the start of July, however, medical testing conducted by World Athletics found they both had high natural levels of testosterone above the competition threshold for women, making them ineligible to compete in events between 400 and 1500 meters.

As such, the pair were withdrawn from the 400 meters by the Namibia's national Olympic committee.

They both competed in the 200 meters instead, with Mboma winning silver and setting another under-20 world record and Masilingi finishing sixth.

Mboma's performance was so impressive in the race that one former athlete questioned whether she is "definitely a woman," and unsuccessfully demanded she take a gender test.

Speaking in a government live stream in Namibia last week, according to New Era Live, the duo publicly addressed the saga for the first time.

"It was quite disturbing at the beginning," said Masilingi. "It was hard to understand. But as time went on, we had no choice but to rather focus on the positive side of things.

"So, we decided to turn our focus and attention to the 200 meters and started working on it. We had to adjust quickly. It demanded that we mentally and physically switch our thoughts very fast ahead of the Olympics.

"We literally had to change how we do things on the track."

Speaking after her compatriot, Mboma added: "It was bad news because our focus was always on the 400 meters and we had been training for [that] all along.

"But now, you are told you can't run 400 meters. We were not even sure if we could really do well in the 200 meters, but we had no choice.

"It was a very bad experience."

Since Tokyo 2020, Mboma won the women's 200 meters at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Kenya, where Masilingi also won silvers in both the 200 meters and 100 meters.