South African Olympic Champion, Caster Semenya, has lost her landmark legal case against athletics’ governing body, the IAAF. The verdict means she will have to take medication to suppress her testosterone if she wants to keep running on the international stage.
The highest court in international sports issued a landmark but nuanced ruling on Wednesday that will force female track athletes with elevated levels of testosterone to take suppressants to compete in certain women’s races at major international events like the Olympics.
The ruling was a defeat for Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion at 800 meters from South Africa, who had challenged proposed limits placed on female athletes with naturally elevated levels of the muscle-building hormone testosterone.
The Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) addressed a complicated, highly charged question involving fair play, gender identity, biology and human rights that the world of track and field has been grappling with for a decade: Since competition is divided into male and female categories, what is the most equitable way to decide who should be eligible to compete in women’s events?
Restrictions on permitted levels of naturally occurring testosterone are discriminatory, the court ruled Wednesday in a 2-to-1 decision. But, the panel added, such discrimination is a “necessary, reasonable and proportionate means” of achieving track and field’s goal of preserving the integrity of women’s competition.
Semenya, who has long argued that her unique genetic gifts should be celebrated not regulated, confirmed that she was considering an appeal and insisted that she believed the DSD regulations would be one day overturned.
“I know that the IAAF’s regulations have always targeted me specifically,” she added. “For a decade the IAAF has tried to slow me down, but this has actually made me stronger. The decision of the Cas will not hold me back. I will once again rise above and continue to inspire young women and athletes in South Africa and around the world.”
The sports scientist Ross Tucker, who was part of Semenya’s team of experts at Cas last month, believes it will mean the South African will run 800m around seven seconds slower – turning her from a world beater into an also-ran at that event. However she may now decide to step up to 5,000m where the IAAF’s rules on DSD athletes do not apply.
Explaining its verdict, CAS said that Semenya’s team had been unable to prove the IAAF’s policy was “invalid” during the five days tribunal in February. And, crucially, it ruled that discrimination in sport is legal provided it is justified.
As it explained in a statement: “The panel found that the DSD Regulations are discriminatory but that, on the basis of the evidence submitted by the parties, such discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics in the Restricted Events.”
However, in its 165-page ruling, the CAS panel expressed “some serious concerns” as to whether the DSD regulations would be applied fairly. It also accepted there could be issues in three other areas including: difficulties for athletes in implementing and complying with the DSD regulations; the absence of concrete evidence supporting the inclusion of certain events under the DSD Regulations, including the 1500m and one mile; the potentially negative and harmful side effects of hormone treatment for DSD athletes.
On the health issues, CAS even added: “The side effects of hormonal treatment, experienced by individual athletes could, with further evidence, demonstrate the practical impossibility of compliance which could, in turn, lead to a different conclusion as to the proportionality of the DSD regulations.”
A spokesperson for Semenya urged the IAAF to take heed of CAS’s concerns and postpone its plan to introduce the DSD regulations, which will take effect in seven days’ time.
“Ms Semenya believes that the dissenting CAS arbitrator will be shown to be correct and the DSD Regulations will be overturned,” the spokesperson added.
Anthony Nlebem
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