FEMALE ATHLETES will undergo a cheek swab to confirm their gender before they can compete at international level.
World Athletics – the governing body of track-and-field – has approved the introduction of the non-invasive method to determine if an athlete is eligible to participate in women’s events.
APAthletes will have their cheeks swabbed to confirm their gender[/caption]
ReutersIt comes after Imane Khelif’s controversial boxing gold at the Paris Olympics[/caption]
Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, says the verification decision – which followed an “exhaustive” consultation process involving 70 individual groups – has been taken to “doggedly protect the female category”.
This follows the controversy surrounding the gold medals won by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting at the Paris 2024 Olympics, which sparked furore across the globe.
Only one mandatory test is required and this will last for the rest of the athlete’s career.
The testing could be in place in time for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, which take place between September 13-21.
Coe, 68, said: “Our World Athletics Council meeting has made important decisions regarding the integrity of the female category in competition.
“They have approved the recommendations of the working group on gender diverse athletes.
“Over the next few weeks, the new recommendations will be drafted and a pre-clearance test provider, process and timeline will be agreed.
“The pre-clearance testing will be for athletes to compete in the female category.
“The process is very straightforward, frankly very clear, and it’s an important one.
“The test will only need to be done once in the career life of an athlete.
“The two determinants here are, firstly, finding the right provider because we are a global sport. You need to find someone with the scale and capacity to do that.
“It’s a cheek swab or a dry blood test – it’s along the lines of something that will be administered once in the career of a female athlete.
“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 female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it.
“We feel this is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”
In February, a World Athletics working group on gender diverse athletes said that the required test will be for the SRY gene – and, if required, testosterone levels – either via cheek swab with any necessary follow-up, or via dry blood spot analysis.
The SRY gene is almost always on the Y chromosome, which plays a crucial role in determining male sex characteristics.
Asked if he was prepared for any criticism over perceived intrusiveness, Coe replied: “No. Neither of these are invasive.
“They are necessary and they will be done to international medical standards.
“This has been a widely-held and pretty exhaustive review and overwhelmingly the view has come back that this is absolutely the way to go within caveats.”
Asked if he felt confident the policy would stand up to any legal challenge or scrutiny, Coe said: “Yes I am but you accept the fact that that is the world we live in.
“I’d never have set off down this path in 2016-17 to protect the female category in sport if I’d been anything other than prepared to take the challenge head on.
“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.
“So we’ll doggedly protect the female category and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it. We are just not talking about it.”
Coe is set to stand down as head of World Athletics when his third and final tenure ends in 2027.
Britain’s double Olympic 1500 metres champion missed out on the chance to become the next president of the International Olympic Committee.
Zimbabwean politician Kirsty Coventry, a two-time backstroke Olympic swimming champion, earned the majority of votes last in Greece to succeed her mentor Thomas Bach in June.
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