Sex tests brought in after data showed 50-60 DSD athletes in finals, World Athletics says
Between 50 and 60 athletes who went through male puberty have been finalists in the female category in global and continental track and field championships since 2000, according to a senior World Athletics official.World Athletics has introduced SRY screening, a gene test that uses a cheek swab to assess if someone is biologically male or female, for the world championships in Tokyo.In a presentation to a scientific panel in the Japanese capital on Friday, Dr Stéphane Bermon, head of health and science at World Athletics, outlined why the sport’s governing body believes such screens are necessary as he presented data collected over the past 25 years.He said it showed that athletes with differences of sex development (DSD), who have a 46 XY karyotype with male testes but were reported female at birth, were significantly “over-represented” in major finals and that it “compromises the integrity of the female competitions”.“Everyone is watching World Athletics and we are leading in this area,” Bermon said before telling his audience that there were “approximately 50-60 cases of DSD in athletics”.
In total between 2000 and 2023, Bermon said there had been 135 DSD finalists in elite international events, given some of the 50 to 60 athletes competed in more than one final.He also showed a slide that said that DSD cases are 151.9 times more likely than would be expected given the number of DSD individuals in the general population.The numbers, which were derived by anti-doping tests that revealed high testosterone levels – and arguably therefore may not capture every case – are significantly higher than many in the sport had expected.There have been several high-profile cases of athletes with a DSD winning global medals, most prominently the South African 800m runner Caster Semenya, who won Olympic gold at the 2012 and 2016 Games.
Namibia’s Christine Mboma also made significant headlines four years ago when she claimed a silver medal in the 200m at the Tokyo 2020 Games.Neither athlete has competed at elite level since World Athletics introduced rules requiring DSD individuals to suppress their testosterone levels.When the new SRY testing policy was unveiled, Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, made clear his determination to ensure only biological females competed in the category.“The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection and the promotion of the integrity of women’s sport,” Lord Coe said.“It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling.
“The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case.We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female.It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology.”Sign up to The RecapThe best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s actionafter newsletter promotionThe move has been subject some criticism from within the scientific and academic community, most notably from Andrew Sinclair, the professor who discovered the SRY gene.Sinclair decried using the SRY gene test to determine biological sex as “overly simplistic” and not “cut and dried”.
Australia’s Jess Hull takes her ‘second chance’ and qualifies for 800m final
Wearing an adhesive bandage covering a gash on her leg, Jess Hull became the first Australian woman to qualify for a world championship 800m final after powering through her semi-final in Tokyo and setting a new national record.Her time on Friday was only good enough for third place, but given the speed of the race she progressed into Sunday’s final as one of the two fastest qualifiers. And it lowered the national mark set only last month by her team-mate Claudia Hollingsworth, who finished fourth in her semi.Hull said she felt she had been given a “second chance” after her fall and reinstatement in the heat on Thursday, but she was pleased with her speed given she has already run three rounds of the 1500m. “To come out tonight and run fast and run a PB and earn my place in the final, I’m really excited,” she said
Sex tests brought in after data showed 50-60 DSD athletes in finals, World Athletics says
Between 50 and 60 athletes who went through male puberty have been finalists in the female category in global and continental track and field championships since 2000, according to a senior World Athletics official.World Athletics has introduced SRY screening, a gene test that uses a cheek swab to assess if someone is biologically male or female, for the world championships in Tokyo.In a presentation to a scientific panel in the Japanese capital on Friday, Dr Stéphane Bermon, head of health and science at World Athletics, outlined why the sport’s governing body believes such screens are necessary as he presented data collected over the past 25 years. He said it showed that athletes with differences of sex development (DSD), who have a 46 XY karyotype with male testes but were reported female at birth, were significantly “over-represented” in major finals and that it “compromises the integrity of the female competitions”.“Everyone is watching World Athletics and we are leading in this area,” Bermon said before telling his audience that there were “approximately 50-60 cases of DSD in athletics”
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The American has rewritten the hurdles record book and now posted the fastest 400m flat in four decades. At 26, her ceiling seems limitlessAs Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Marileidy Paulino whisked around the final bend of the 400m final at the World Championships in Tokyo, did McLaughlin-Levrone think back to when Paulino handed her just one of two career losses in the event in Paris two years prior? Probably not, though she certainly had reason to. The New Jerseyan led most of that 2023 race, surging to an early advantage from the inside lane and maintaining it for three-quarters of the course. But she’d gone out too hard. The 400-meter is a cruel trial, just too long to sprint flat-out the entire way, just too short to save meaningful reserves
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