Caster warms up for battle on gender rule
Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya has accused the IAAF of breaching the confidentiality around the hearing of her case against the world governing body, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland.
Her lawyers were responding to a media release issued earlier on Monday by the International Association of Athletics Federations in which it named its five expert witnesses in the matter to decide if athletes with hyperandrogenism gain an unfair advantage over other women because of their higher levels of naturally occurring testosterone.
The case started on Monday and is expected to run most of the week.
“The arbitration proceedings are subject to strict confidentiality provisions and this information should not have been released‚” Semenya’s lawyers said in a statement.
“Ms Semenya believes the IAAF press release is a clear breach of the confidentiality provisions that was orchestrated in an effort to influence public opinion in circumstances where the IAAF knew that Ms Semenya would not be prepared to respond because she was complying with her confidentiality obligations.
“As a matter of fairness Ms Semenya raised this issue with the CAS and has been granted permission to publicly release information responding to the IAAF press release‚ including disclosing the experts who are testifying in support of Ms Semenya’s case.
“This information will be released tomorrow [Tuesday]‚” her lawyers said.
The SA government says the rules specifically target Semenya and has called them a gross violation of her human rights.
The controversial measures would force so-called “hyperandrogenic” athletes or those with “differences of sexual development” (DSD) to take drugs to lower their testosterone levels below a prescribed amount if they wish to continue competing.
A judgment is expected by the end of March.
As he arrived at the court, IAAF president Sebastian Coe said: “Today [Monday] is a very, very important day. The regulations that we are introducing are there to protect the sanctity of fair and open competition.”
Athletics SA has strongly backed Semenya. Its chief advocate, Norman Arendse, said she would give evidence. The issue is highly emotive. When British newspaper The Times reported last week that the IAAF would argue that Semenya should be classified as a biological male – a claim later denied by the IAAF – she hit back, saying she was unquestionably a woman.
In response to the report, the IAAF – stressing it was referring in general terms, not to Semenya in particular – denied it intended to classify any DSD athlete as male.
Semenya is not the only athlete potentially affected – the silver and bronze medallists in the Rio Olympics 800m, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Kenya’s Margaret Wambui, have also faced questions about their testosterone levels.
But it is Semenya, who also won Olympic gold in 2012 and has three world titles to her name, who has brought the court challenge.