Seb Coe, president of World Athletics, will introduce noninvasive “pre-clearance tests” for female athletes amid disputes over men’s participation in women’s sports.
The tests will include cheek swabs or dry blood tests and will only be used once in an athlete’s career. According to Athletics Weekly, tests could be introduced as early as September of this year for the World Championships.
“It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about, and particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of women’s sport, but guaranteeing it,” Coe said. “We feel this is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”
“We will doggedly protect the female category, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it,” he added.
The World Athletics female category currently excludes anyone “who has undergone male puberty, based on research that says trans women retain a significant physical advantage even after undergoing testosterone suppression therapy,” per Athletics Weekly.
“But the governing body is now citing new evidence which shows there is already an athletically significant performance gap before the onset of puberty and is consequently looking to strengthen its rules in this area,” it reported. “Coe says the move is motivated by a desire to ‘ensure that our guidelines keep up with the latest information available to maintain a fair and level playing field in the female category.’”
Coe said the new tests were implemented after careful consideration and consultation, adding that the prevailing majority believes they should be in place.
“Overwhelmingly, the view has come back that this is absolutely the way to go, within the caveats raised [on testing not being too intrusive],” Coe said, adding that the tests will stand up to legal challenges.
“I would never have set off down this path to protect the female category in sport if I’d been anything other than prepared to take the challenge head on,” he said. “We’ve been to the court of arbitration [for sport] on our DSD [difference of sexual development] regulations. They have been upheld and they have again been upheld after appeal.”
News of the tests comes after the new International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, Kirsty Coventry, said she supports a blanket ban on trans athletes participating in women’s sports.
“I want to ensure that front and foremost, we protect (the) female category. I don’t believe that transgender female athletes should be competing at the Olympic Games in female categories,” Coventry said during the European Olympic Committee’s general assembly in February.
“I do believe everyone has the right to play sport, 100%, but when it comes to the Olympic Games … being a former female athlete and having two young girls, I want to ensure that category is protected,” Coventry added.
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