The Democratic Alliance welcomed the suspension of Athletics SA (ASA) head Leonard Chuene and its board on Thursday.

"We have repeatedly been calling for this for months. Indeed, I originally asked for [SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee] to take this action on September 20th," said MP Donald Lee.

"Athletics South Africa's handling of this matter has been shameful. This is the right decision from Sascoc, and we throw our full support behind it."

The party was concerned about how long it took to make the decision and that Chuene had the support of ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.

"This kind of support for Chuene is simply indefensible — it is an insult to Caster Semenya, who Chuene so badly betrayed."

Chuene, some employees and the ASA board were suspended pending the outcome of an investigation over the handling of gold medallist Semenya's gender testing.

Sascoc would also consider taking appropriate action against the International Association of Athletics Federations for its alleged disregard of Semenya’s rights to privacy in announcing that she was undergoing gender verification tests.

Semenya won the women’s 800m title at the World Championships in Berlin in August amid controversy about her gender. ASA denied gender tests had been conducted on Semenya but Chuene later admitted to lying about that.

The suspended officials were expected to appear before a disciplinary enquiry to answer charges of bringing ASA, the sport of athletics, Sascoc and sport in general into disrepute.

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