Reports yesterday that gender testing on South Africa's running sensation has determined she has hidden male sexual organs triggered outrage and dealt a blow to her family, who may have been unaware of the reported condition. And, foremost, there is worry about how the 18-year-old will handle all this.

Newspaper reports from Australia said testing determined Caster Semenya has internal testes, meaning the runner herself, who was raised in a poor village, may have been unaware of such a condition.

And now such intimate details are there for the world to see.

The International Association of Athletics Federations, which ordered the testing, refused to confirm or deny the reports. The IAAF said it is reviewing the test results and will not issue any final decision until November at their meeting in Monaco.

South African Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile held a press conference yesterday to express his horror at the handling of the whole affair. He insisted Caster, who won gold at the world athletic championships in August, is female and that lack of a womb should not disqualify her from women's competition.

"We think her human rights have been violated and her privacy invaded," Stofile said. "I don't know why she is being subjected to this."

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said the case could have serious psychological repercussions.

"This is something that touches the very soul of the individual," Rogge told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The psychological but also social consequences are really tremendous. This is something that preferably should be handled discreetly if you have the time to do that."

Semenya, who has a low voice and whose body ripples with muscles, dropped out of sight yesterday. The South African Press Association quoted her coach, Michael Seme, as saying she would not take part in a women's 4,000-metres at the South African Cross Country Championships in Pretoria today because she was "not feeling well." Seme had said earlier in the week Semenya would run.

She has told reporters she is happy the way she is and seemed to take the controversy in stride when she appeared on the cover of a South African magazine earlier this week wearing makeup, gold jewelry and a dress, foregoing the pants she normally wore.

Semenya's father, Jacob, expressed anger when contacted by The Associated Press on Friday, saying people who insinuate his daughter is not a woman "are sick. They are crazy."