Award more medals

Re: The Gender Testing Debate, Scott Stinson, Aug. 18. Perhaps the best solution for the issue of intersex women competing in women’s races would be to allow duplicate medals in the same event. The woman who finishes first overall should receive a gold medal, regardless of her testosterone level, but the top three finishers in the normal testosterone range should also receive gold, silver and bronze medals. In theory, this could result in up to six medals in a race if women with elevated testosterone levels won the first three spots.

Some people might find it strange that different categories should be created for athletes based on their natural endowments, but we already make distinctions based on size in boxing, wrestling and similar sports.

Lightweights and middleweights are not expected to compete against heavyweights. Potentially giving multiple medals based on the natural endowment of testosterone would be no more unusual or unfair than multiple medals in combat sports. Bruce Couchman, Ottawa.

There is a simple test whether an athlete should be allowed to compete as female: are they unambiguously female? If there is ambiguity — as in the case of Caster Semenya and perhaps others — then their records must not stand. That’s the same standard we apply to doped athletes. The ambiguity test should determine eligibility. Ron Freedman, Toronto.