Testosterone a ‘significant’ boost for women athletes
PARIS: Women runners born with high testosterone levels enjoy a “significant competitive advantage”, said a study on Tuesday that could reignite debate on the future participation of athletes whose gender was questioned.
The study, jointly sponsored by the sporting agency seeking to ban athletes with hyperandrogenism, comes three weeks before the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) must present expert evidence on “the actual degree” of advantage women could gain.
Hyperandrogenism is a condition that causes high natural levels of the male hormone, testosterone, in women.
Without proof, IAAF regulations excluding women with hyperandrogenism from competition are set to lapse. Track stars such as South Africa’s Caster Semenya and India’s Dutee Chand both endured banishment for failing so-called “gender tests”.
The new study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, was funded by the IAAF and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).
One of the authors, Stephane Bermon, is an IAAF consultant and a member of its working group on hyperandrogenic athletes.
The other, Pierre-Yves Garnier, is director of the IAAF’s health and science department. He returned to work in January after a three-month suspension in a probe linked to Russian athletics doping.
Their research relied on blood data from male and female athletes who competed in the World Championships in 2011 and 2013 — more than 2,100 samples in all.
It found that women with high natural testosterone levels performed better in the 400-metre sprint, 400m hurdles, and 800m middle-distance events than women with low levels.
They also outperformed them pole-vaulting and hammer throw.
Depending on the event, performance improved by between 1.8 at and 4.5 per cent, the paper said.
This link, concluded the authors, “should be taken into account when the eligibility of women with hyperandrogenism to compete in the female category of competition is discussed.”
The study is an observational study that cannot determine conclusively that higher testosterone is what causes the performance boost, merely that an increase in one is associated with an increase in the other.