Female athletes will have to undergo a one-time genetic test to compete in women’s events, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said on Tuesday (March 25), after proposals to tighten eligibility rules were discussed by the body’s council.
Coe said regulations would be drafted soon and the global body, which governs track-and-field and road-running events, would find a test provider with the capacity to conduct the non-invasive cheek swab or dry blood spot analysis tests.
Athletes will have to take the test just once in their careers to show that they do not have the SRY gene, which determines male sex in humans and most other mammals.
World Athletics now bans transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in women’s events, and requires differences of sex development athletes whose bodies produce high testosterone levels to lower them in order to be eligible.
South African 800m runner Caster Semanya challenged World Athletics rules in 2018 that insisted female athletes with high levels of testosterone would be required to take medication to limit it. The Court of Arbitration for Sport agreed with Semanya’s claim that the rules were discriminatory but concluded World Athletics actions were necessary to preserve the integrity of the sport.
In 2019 Niger sprinter Aminatou Seyni refused to take the hormone suppressants and was therefore banned from competing in the 400 metres at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“The pre-clearance testing will be for athletes to be able to compete in the female category,” Coe told reporters.
Coe said he was confident that the new rules would stand up to legal challenges and scrutiny.
Coe said World Athletics was also committed to increasing prize money for Olympic champions. It awarded prize money at last year’s Paris Games for the first time, giving gold medallists $50,000 each, and has promised that at the 2028 Los Angeles games there will be cash for silver and bronze too.
World Athletics said there would be no change to sanctions over Russia and Belarus, whose athletes remain banned from international competitions since 2022 following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Production: Simon Ormiston)
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