London: The IAAF is to argue that Olympic women’s 800m champion Caster Semenya should be classified as a ‘biological male’ and forced to take testosterone suppressants if she is to compete in women’s competition, according to reports.
Ahead of a landmark hearing at the Court of Arbitration (CAS) next week, ‘The Times’ here said that the IAAF will contest Semenya and other athletes with ‘differences of sexual development’ (DSD) should only be able to compete with lower testosterone levels to ensure a level playing field. This in a big way will also decide the future of Indian athlete Dutee Chand who in the past had been categorised in the same category and banned from various events.
However, the IAAF hit back at the ‘biological male’ report Wednesday.
“The IAAF is not classifying any DSD athlete as male. To the contrary, we accept their legal sex without question, and permit them to compete in the female category,” the IAAF said in a statement.
“However if a DSD athlete has tests and male levels of testosterone, they get the same increases in bone and muscle size and strength and increases in haemoglobin that a male gets when they go through puberty, which is what gives men such a performance advantage over women.
“Therefore, to preserve fair competition in the female category, it is necessary to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone down to female levels before they compete at international level,” the IAAF added.
As well as Semenya, the silver and bronze medallists of the 800m at the Rio Olympics, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Kenya’s Margaret Wambui, have also faced questions about their testosterone levels. Sprinter Chand also had to fight a long battle against CAS, before she was allowed to run after failing to take part in the 2014 Commonwealth and Asian Games. Incidentally Chand finished with silver medals in both the 100m and 200m in the 2018 Asiad.
“If CAS rules that legal recognition as female is sufficient to qualify for the female category of competition, and the IAAF is not permitted to require athletes of female legal sex who have testes and consequently male levels of testosterone to reduce those levels down to the female range, then DSD and transgender athletes will dominate the podiums and prize money in sport,” Jonathan Taylor, IAAF’s London-based lawyer was quoted as saying by the ‘The Times’.
“Women with normal female testosterone levels will not have any chance to win,” Taylor added.
AFP