World Athletics mandates gene test for female category eligibility

MONACO — Clarifying promised rules on female eligibility, track and field's governing body last week set a Sept 1 deadline for athletes to pass a gene test for competing at the world championships.

World Athletics said in March it would require chromosome testing by cheek swabs or dry blood-spot tests for female athletes to be eligible for elite-level events.

The next worlds open on Sept 13 in Tokyo, and Sept 1 is "the closing date for entries and the date the regulations come into effect," World Athletics said in a statement.

The latest rules update gives certainty for the 2025 championships in an issue that has been controversial on the track, and in multiple courts, since Caster Semenya won her first 800m world title as a teenager in 2009.

Semenya won a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights three weeks ago in Strasbourg, France, in the South Africa star's yearslong challenge to a previous version of track and field's eligibility rules affecting athletes with medical conditions known as Differences in Sex Development. That legal win, because she did not get a fair hearing at the Swiss supreme court, did not overturn track's rules.

World Athletics drew up rules in 2018 forcing two-time Olympic champion Semenya and other athletes with DSD to suppress their elevated natural testosterone levels to be eligible for international women's events. Semenya refused to take medication.

Now, the Monaco-based track body requires a "once-in-a-lifetime test" to determine if athletes it says are biologically male carry the Y chromosome.

"We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female," World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said.

"It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology. We particularly want to thank our member federations for their support and commitment in the implementation of these new regulations."

The governing body is covering up to $100 of the costs for each test, with the protocol overseen by its member federations at national level. Test results should be ready within two weeks.

"The SRY test is extremely accurate, and the risk of false negative or positive is extremely unlikely," World Athletics said.

World Athletics has combined its eligibility framework for DSD and transgender athletes, with transitional rules that let "a very small number of known DSD athletes "continue competing if they are taking medication to suppress natural testosterone.

"The transitional provisions do not apply to transgender women, as there are none competing at the elite international level under the current regulations," World Athletics said.

The SRY gene reveals the presence of the Y chromosome, which is an indicator of biological sex.

The test was also approved by World Boxing in May, when it introduced mandatory sex testing for all boxers.

Earlier last month, the European Court upheld a 2023 ruling that double 800m Olympic champion Semenya's appeal to a Swiss Federal Tribunal against regulations that barred her from competing had not been properly heard.

Semenya was appealing against World Athletics regulations that female athletes with DSD medically reduce their testosterone levels.

Agencies Via Xinhua