Johannesburg  - South Africa's sports minister Makhenkesi Stofile was due to address the media in Pretoria Friday on the results of gender tests on the country's controversial 800 metres women's world champion, Caster Semenya.

The sports department called the press conference after Australian media reported that the tests carried out by world athletics body IAAF on Semenya last month in Berlin showed she was intersex - or has both male and female sexual organs.

The IAAF has yet to officially release the results of the tests, which were prompted by Semenya's masculine appearance and suddenly-improved race times over the past year.

The federation had been delaying their release, saying it wanted to talk to Semenya first.

Semenya's family reacted angrily to the media leak.

"This is getting too far, those are speculations because they are still waiting for the official announcement of the IAAF," her cousin Moyahabo Kganakga told Johannesburg's 702 private radio.

Athletics South Africa president Leonard Chuene, who said Thursday he had not yet received the results, only said Friday Semenya was being supported by her coach and a psychologist.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, a staunch supporter of Semenya, said she was "extremely hurt by what I am hearing (results)."

"The poor innocent child is a victim of all this, and it is not of her making."

"I think it is the responsibility of South Africa to rally behind this child and tell the rest of the world that she remains the hero she is, and no one will take that away from her," Madikizela-Mandela told The Star newspaper in Johannesburg.

"I do not understand how any sane person can blame this child for a biological problem which is not of her making," she said. (dpa)