Semenya’s status still in limbo

LONDON — The Times reported on Wednesday that the IAAF will argue that Olympic women’s 800m champion Caster Semenya should be classified as a “biological male” and forced to take testosterone suppressants in order to compete in women’s competitions.

Ahead of a landmark hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) next week, the newspaper said the IAAF will contest Semenya and other athletes with “differences of sexual development”, arguing that so-called DSD athletes should only be able to compete with lower testosterone levels.

However, athletics’ world governing body denied the “biological male” claims, stating: “The IAAF is not classifying any DSD athlete as male. To the contrary, we accept their legal sex without question, and permit them to compete in the female category.

“However, if a DSD athlete has testes and male levels of testosterone,

they get the same increases in bone and muscle size and strength and increases in haemoglobin that a male gets when they go through puberty, which is what gives men such a performance advantage over women.

“Therefore, to preserve fair competition in the female category, it is necessary to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone to female levels before they compete internationally.”