Caster Semenya, the former 800m world champion who was forced to take a humiliating gender test aged 18, says she "couldn't have survived" the resulting furore without her family.
Semenya, now 24, burst onto the scene after winning gold for South Africa in 800m at the World Championships in Berlin six years ago.
However, her muscular build and rapid improvement - she improved her personal best by seven seconds in nine months - led to accusations that she was not eligible to run as a woman.
The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) was condemned after demanding Semenya take a gender test. She passed the test, but remains indignant at how she was treated.
"It was upsetting, you feel humiliated," she told the BBC. "If it wasn't for my family, I don't think I could have survived."
The IAAF was particularly criticised for its decision to make the test public, with Dame Kelly Holmes among those who questioned why the IAAF kept suspicious drugs tests private until an athlete had been charged, but chose to publicise Semenya's situation.
Semenya continued: "I was world champion but I was never able to celebrate it. It was a joke for me. When I grew up, I grew up like that. I grew up with boys, I grew up around boys, I cannot change it.
"You cannot control what people think. It is about yourself, controlling yourself - what is in you. But now I want to focus more on the future, I don't want to go back there. What is done, is done."
Despite her abhorrent treatment at such a young age, Semenya never entertained ideas of quitting athletics.
"Running is what I will always do," said Semenya. "Even if, maybe, the authorities could have stopped me from running in 2009, they could not have stopped me in the fields. I would have carried on with my running, it doesn't matter. When I run I feel free, my mind is free."
Semenya has struggled in recent years after dislocating her knee, but is determined to represent South Africa at the Olympics again, four years after taking silver in London.
"Coming back from a 24-month setback is hard," she says.
"I am a dreamer. And what I dream of is to become Olympic champion, world champion, world record holder - I can't stop running because of people.
"If you have a problem with it, you have to come straight to me and tell me. I cannot stop because people say 'no, she looks like a man, this and that.' It is their problem. Not mine."
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