CAS to mediate in new female athlete ruling
IAAF, ASA agree but Semenya’s challenge still garners SA support
THE fate of female athletes with high testosterone levels will be in the hands of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after it was decided between Athletics SA president Aleck Skhosana and his International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) counterpart Seb Coe that it is the right body to arbitrate “and its final decision will be respected by both organisations”.
The two held a “cordial meeting” in London on Tuesday to discuss the new female eligibility rules. They said in a joint statement it had been agreed CAS was the right body to “arbitrate this matter”.
ASA announced at the weekend that its challenge to the regulations would be led by a legal and medical team supported by the Department of Sport and Recreation and the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee.
Skhosana said it was duty bound to protect all athletes who may fall foul of these new regulations. “While we have been talking to the IAAF since May 10, we would have preferred more consultation in the development of these regulations.
“We will support our athletes on the grounds that the regulations discriminate against certain female athletes on the basis of natural physical characteristics and/ or sex.”
The IAAF introduced a new policy in April attempting to regulate women who naturally produce testosterone levels above five nanomoles per litre of blood. The regulations are limited to events ranging from the 400m to the mile.
The global athletics governing body’s amended regulations would go into effect in November and require female athletes to maintain testosterone levels below five nanomoles per litre for a continuous period of at least six months.
Coe made it clear that no individual athlete has been targeted in the creation and the IAAF needed to ensure its sport is as inclusive as possible.
“To do this, we need to create competition categories that ensure that success is determined by talent, dedication and hard work, rather than by other factors that are not considered fair or meaningful, such as the enormous physical advantages that an adult has over a child, or a male athlete has over a female athlete.
“We therefore need to come up with a fair solution for intersex/DSD (difference of sexual development) athletes wishing to compete in the female category, which is what the new regulations set out to do, based on the evidence the IAAF has gathered about the degree of performance benefit that such intersex/DSD athletes get from higher levels of testosterone.”
ASA on Saturday announced it had lodged a statement of appeal with CAS.
“Caster Semenya, one of the affected athletes, has decided to challenge these regulations and has appointed her own legal and medical team.
“ASA supports her application and has instructed its legal and medical teams to (consult with) her legal and medical teams.”
PEOPLE ARE BEING UNWITTINGLY PERSUADED TO ACCEPT OTHER CARDS
“There is confusion with regards to Post Bank cards and the new Sassa card. Some beneficiaries don’t know the difference.
“A lot are opening the post office card which is not the Sassa cards.
“They expect their grant to be automatically paid onto the Post Bank card, which is not the case.
“There is also a huge campaign for people to open the Easy Pay Everywhere (EPE) card.
“Because of the confusion between which card to get, people are getting those cards,” said Ismail.
Ismail said Black Sash had been monitoring the situation and found that despite CPS being phased out in favour of the new Sassa card, CPS was campaigning at Sassa paypoints and encouraging users to get the EPE card.
Ismail said there was not much communication on the ground from Sapo about how beneficiaries could transfer and get the new card.
She said CPS was possibly trying to stay in the loop of the grant by still offering beneficiaries their card.
Kwele acknowledged that people had been persuaded to accept cards other than the new Sassa cards, which she said could have illegal deductions.
“We have seen people being unwittingly persuaded to accept other cards only to realise later that they will be charged all sorts of exorbitant fees.
“The new gold Sassa card guarantees you will not be debited with a monthly service fee of R10, or illegal deductions for loans, airtime or electricity.
“The Post Office and Sassa have deployed teams throughout the country where dedicated temporary card swop sites are established using existing infrastructure such as municipality halls to expedite the migration to the new card.
“This will ensure as many people as possible are put on to the new Sassa cards before the end of August,” said Kwele.