A few weeks ago South Africa was hailing a new golden girl, an unknown woman athlete who had demolished the 800 metres field at the World Championships in Berlin.

Last night, with the country’s top athletics official admitting that he covered up an investigation into the gender of Caster Semenya and with politicians baying for blood, the country was mired in the shame of the exploitation of one girl for the sake of a gold medal.

Demands for the resignation of Leonard Chuene, president of Athletics South Africa (ASA), followed his admission at the weekend that he and other top ASA officials had consistently lied that they had no knowledge of tests carried out in Pretoria and Berlin on Ms Semenya.

The outrage that until recently had been directed at the foreign media and the IAAF, the athletics’ world governing body, was turned inwards as the Sports Ministry denounced Mr Chuene’s “lies” — and his claim that he had been trying to “protect a child”.

Ms Semenya has barely been seen in public since returning home in triumph last month. Hugo Badenhorst, director of development at Tuks Athletics, the Pretoria University athletics club, told The Times yesterday: “She’s well. She is training lightly. But we are looking after her. Everything that happens is being carefully explained to her — we have a professional team working around her.”

No sooner had Ms Semenya won her gold medal at the World Championships in Berlin on August 19 than questions were being asked about her deep voice and muscular frame. At first the ASA denied any knowledge of an examination, but in fact its officials had quietly ordered that Ms Semenya undergo tests at a Pretoria clinic.

During those tests, on August 7, her genitals were photographed and her internal organs examined — although she was told that she was only having a routine drugs test.

The ASA also knew about further gender tests carried out by the IAAF in Berlin after her victory. But Mr Chuene and other ASA officials immediately characterised media speculation about the athlete’s gender as racist. “Who are white people to question the make-up of an African girl? I say this is racism, pure and simple . . . The people who question these things have no idea how much shame such a slur can bring on a family,” he said.

The cover-up was revealed on Friday when a South African newspaper published leaked e-mails between ASA officials showing they were aware that the Pretoria clinic had found that Ms Semenya had internal testes and produced abnormal amounts of testosterone for a woman. Harold Adams, the ASA’s chief medical officer and team doctor, at first called for Ms Semenya to be withdrawn from the competition, it was reported, but then apparently proposed keeping the test results confidential.

Realising that the game was up, Mr Chuene admitted that he and his officials had lied throughout the saga, but he added: “Tell me someone who has not lied to protect a child. My only crime committed was to take a decision that she must run, and she won.”

He admitted that he had ignored the advice of Dr Adams to withdraw Ms Semenya from the World Championships. He also made the extraordinary allegation that he had met IAAF commissioners before Ms Semanya’s gold medal run and that they had suggested to him that she feign injury, pull out of the race and thus avoid the worldwide publicity that would inevitably follow if she won.

He continued to accuse the IAAF of violating her rights. “The IAAF publicly revealed her name. The IAAF betrayed her,” Mr Chuene said.

Gert Oosthuizen, the Deputy Sports Minister, said yesterday that Mr Chuene’s lies were to “the detriment of Ms Semenya” and had “fuelled the continuous violation of Ms Semenya’s rights and dignity by foreign and some local media”.

Gwede Mantashe, Secretary-General of the ruling ANC, said that all ASA officials “should be gagged before they make matters worse”.

Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, said: “Quite clearly \ Chuene was putting his quest for medals above everything else. Now he claims to have acted in \ interests. He must resign, he must go.”

The Sunday Times, South Africa’s most influential weekend newspaper, called for Ms Semenya, who has been kept away from the media by the ASA since her return from Germany, to be allowed to speak. “Let the truth be heard and let anyone who betrayed her be damned by us all,” it said.

“It is slowly emerging that she has been abused, deceived and shamefully exploited. She was sent to race by men and women who knew that serious questions were being asked and probably could not be satisfactorily answered, but whose lust for gold trumped any concern for her wellbeing.The evidence is mounting that Semenya’s ordeal is a direct and probably inevitable result of the greed and ambition of professionals around her.”