Sebastian Coe has vowed to “doggedly protect the female category and do whatever it takes to protect it” after World Athletics became the first sport to introduce DNA tests for elite female athletes.
Lord Coe insisted that the new policy, which he said would involve a one‑time cheek swab or dry blood test that was noninvasive, was necessary to protect fairness in the female category. World Athletics hopes to have testing in place in time for its outdoor world championships in September.
“We’re not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it,” said Coe, president of World Athletics. “And this, we feel, is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”
Since 2023 World Athletics has banned transgender women from the female category, citing scientific research that found trans women retained an advantage in strength, endurance, power and lung capacity, even after taking medication to suppress their testosterone. However the new rules will also bar athletes with a difference of sex development (DSD) – who are reported female at birth but undergo the physiological benefits of male puberty – from the female category.
World Athletics said it had taken the decision after new research showed that the male advantage exists even before puberty. It said the performance gap from men to women was 3% to 5% in running events, and higher in throwing and jumping events.
“The process is very straightforward frankly,” Coe said, before confirming that World Athletics was looking at cheek/buccal swab tests and blood spot tests. “Neither of these are invasive. They are necessary and they will be done to absolute medical standards.”
Coe said World Athletics would be prepared to go to the court of arbitration for sport, where it won a case against Caster Semenya in 2019, to defend its proposals. “We’ve been to the court of arbitration on our DSD regulations,” he said. “They’ve been upheld, and they’ve again been upheld after appeal. We will doggedly protect the female category, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it. And we’re not just talking about it.”
That may have been a pointed reference to the incoming International Olympic Committee president, Kirsty Coventry, who has talked since her election victory over Coe about setting up a taskforce to look at the issue after previously stating that “protecting the female category and female sports is paramount”. Coventry has also said lessons needed to be learned from the controversial women’s Olympic boxing tournament in Paris last year, when the Algerian Imane Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting of Chinese Taipei won gold. Both had been barred from competing at the 2023 world championships by the International Boxing Association after failing sex tests but were allowed to take part in Paris by the IOC.
There will be increased prize money for Olympic champions at Los Angeles 2028, including for silver and bronze medallists. Gold medallists were rewarded for the first time in Paris last year, receiving $50,000 (£39,000) each. Coe, who talked of making “the financial security of the athlete one of your priorities”, said prize money across all events in the next four-year cycle would be $51m.
World Athletics will not be lifting the bans imposed on athletes from Russia and Belarus after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Leave a Reply