The track and the field will introduce compulsory DNA sex tests for athletes entering women’s competitions, its world leader said on Tuesday, making it the first Olympic sport to add the requirement.
This decision comes in the midst of an increasingly upset debate on eligibility rules in female sports and comes less than a year after The problem broke out at the Paris Olympic Games When questions about the qualifications of two women who continued to ensure boxing gold medals led to tumultuous – and sometimes disturbing – scenes inside and outside the ring.
This decision is essential to protect female sports, said Sebastian COE in Great Britain, the leader of the tracking organization, world athletics and a former double Olympic gold medal in 1500 meters. He said that the new policy, which would submit competitors of what is described as an essay on offshooter or non -invasive dry blood, was part of his wish to “stubbornly protect the female category and do everything it takes to protect it”.
World Athletics said the new tests could be in place in time for its next world championships in Tokyo in September.
“We are not only talking about the integrity of women’s sport, but in fact guaranteeing it,” COE told journalists in Nanjing, China. “And that, we think, is a really important way to provide confidence and maintain this absolute concentration on the integrity of the competition.”
Mr. Coe, an unsuccessful candidate Recent elections To direct the International Olympic Committee, was a polarizing force in its zeal on this issue. The debate on the eligibility criteria of women led to battles presented – mainly played in the social media bear – on whom has the right to compete. The track since 2023 prohibited transgender athletes from female competition.
The new rules eliminate from the female competition a minority of athletes who do not have the sexual chromosomes typical of XX women and which have one of the many conditions which are known together under the name of differences in sexual development, or DSD. These people can be women at external appearances, and some do not know that they have DSDs. But their unusual genetics can lead to high levels of testosterone, and perhaps higher muscle development, giving them part of the athletic advantage that men have.
The track and the field have been at the forefront of the debate since the South African runner Caster Semenya exploded in public conscience by winning gold at 800 meters during a world championship in 2009. His victory caused a reaction of the rivals who complained of the appearance of Mrs. Semenya, leading to the governance organization at the time of sexual tests. The problem was a rare line giving it naturally high levels of testosterone.
She won gold at the London Olympic Games in 2012, and again at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016, when the three female 800 meters medalists were all athletes with DSD.
In 2018, track managers began to demand that all DSD athletes take medication to reduce the amount of testosterone in their bodies in order to compete. Now, even this allowance – which some athletes have challenged – will disappear.
World Athletics said it has updated its policy after concluding that the most recent research has shown that male benefits are still before puberty. The advantages of performance, he said, between men and women were up to 5% in racing events and even higher in the throwing and jumping categories.
Human rights groups previously criticized the rules of athleticsDescribing sexual eligibility tests and the obligation to restrict the natural testosterone levels of athletes as abusive and harmful.
Mr. Coe tried to play the effect of the last tests, which all female athletes will have to undergo once.
“The process is very simple, frankly,” he said. “None of these elements are invasive. They are necessary and they will be made according to absolute medical standards.”
Ms. Semenya challenged the previous rules of the Manager organization, and the case was devoted to the International Sports Court in 2019, where she lost. Mr. Coe said he was ready to defend the new rules in court also if a similar challenge occurs.
The question of who is or is not eligible to participate in the female category was important during the recent ECO election during which Mr. Coe and five other candidates lost against Kirsty Coventry, a former Golden Winner Swimmer in Zimbabwe, who will take control in June.
Coventry said that she intended to set up a working group, as well as a meeting with different sports, to discuss ideas on the protection of female sports, but was vague on a specific policy, calling only “a little more sensitivity” towards athletes with a difference in sex development. The IOC previously rejected the idea of sexual tests, but Ms. Coventry did not exclude the possibility.
Tackling the subject has also become more treacherous for sports officials since President Trump’s return to the White House. Before the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028, Mr. Trump was frank on the issue, saying that there are only two sexes – men and women – and Order visa prohibitions Last month to prevent transgender athletes from entering the United States.