Athletics body announces testosterone level rules
● Female athletes must control hormone while they are competitive
Double Olympic 800 metres champion Caster Semenya will have to take medication to lower her testosterone levels or move up to longer distances as a result of new rules announced yesterday.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has introduced new eligibility regulations for female classification for athletes with Differences of Sexual Development (DSD) for events from 400m to the mile.
The regulations require any athlete who has DSD to be recognised “at law as either female or intersex” and to reduce their blood testosterone level below five nmol/l (nanomoles per litre) for a continuous period of at least six months.
This level must be maintained for as long as the athlete wishes to remain eligible for competition.
The regulations, approved by the IAAF council in March, will come into effect from 1 November and replace the previous regulations governing eligibility of females with hyperandrogenism to compete in women’s competition.
Female athletes who do not wish to lower their testosterone levels will still be eligible to compete in non-international competitions, or in the male classification.
IAAF president Sebastian Coe said: “As the International Federation for our sport we havearesponsibilitytoensure a level playing field for athletes. Like many other sports we choose to have two classifications for our competition – men’s events and women’s events.
“This means we need to be clear about the competition criteria for these two categories. Our evidence and data show that testosterone, either naturally produced or artificially inserted into the body, provides significant performance advantages in female athletes.
“The revised rules are not about cheating, no athlete with a DSD has cheated, they are about levelling the playing field to ensure fair and meaningful competition in the sport of athletics where success is determined by talent, dedication and hard work rather than other contributing factors.”
Sections of the report were published in the media in the UK and South Africa on Wednesday and shortly before its official release yesterday, Semenya posted on Twitter: “I am 97 per cent sure you don’t like me, but I’m 100 per cent sure I don’t care.”
Although Semenya did not specifically link the post to the new regulations, it quickly received replies in support of the 27-year-old South African, who has been in the spotlight ever since it emerged she was subjected to a gender verification test at the 2009 World Championships, where she won the first of her three world titles over 800m, aged just 18.
“The revised rules are not about cheating, no athlete with a DSD has cheated, they are about levelling the playing field”
SEBASTIAN COE