Hamburg - Olympic supremo Jacques Rogge sprung to the defence of the beleaguered athletics body IAAF in the Caster Semenya gender case on Thursday, saying it ran out of time.

Speaking in a teleconference from the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, Rogge spoke of "a very complicated issue" around the South African 800 metres world champion Semenya.

The IAAF announced just hours before the 800m final at the Berlin worlds on August 19 that it had requested a gender verification test.

The IAAF decided on the measure after Semenya burst onto the scene on July 31 with the world leading 1 minute 56.72, improving her 2008 best by almost eight seconds. She won the Berlin final in 1:55.45.

Last week, Australian news reports said that results of the extensive tests showed Semenya, 18, was intersex. The IAAF has not officially announced the test results and will not comment until a final decision set for November.

South African politicians and sports officials reacted with outrage to the case and attacked the IAAF for its role.

But Rogge said: "I think that the IAAF has unfortunately been caught by a shortage of time.

"The athlete came to the forefront very close to the Berlin world championships. The IAAF launched an inquiry but unfortunately this is time-consuming. The results were not available by Berlin."

Rogge said he was waiting like everyone else for the test results and what experts will decide in the case.

"It is a very complicated issue because you probably have heard that there is no clear cut, no easy positive or negative definition of gender.

"You have a lot of in-between situations and then the experts must make an assessment ultimately is this going to be considered an athlete that can compete with the women or could not compete with the women."(dpa)