Caster Semenya WINS appeal against controversial testosterone rules after being barred from Olympics

Two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya won an appeal against athletics’ testosterone rules on Tuesday after the European Court of Human Rights ruled she had been discriminated against.

The ruling could force the Supreme Court of Sports to reexamine rules that force Semenya and other female athletes to artificially lower naturally high testosterone levels in order to compete in top competitions such as the Olympics and world championships.

The Strasbourg Court ruled in favor of Semenya by a 4-3 majority of judges.

The court also ruled that the South African runner was denied an “effective remedy” against that discrimination when the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Supreme Court rejected her two previous appeals against the rules.

World Athletics said in a statement: “World Athletics takes note of the ruling of the deeply divided chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The ruling could lead to a reexamination of rules that force Semenya and other female athletes to artificially lower naturally high testosterone levels in order to compete in top competitions.

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“We remain of the opinion that the DSD rules are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the women’s category, as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Tribunal have both determined, following a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence.

“The case is against the state of Switzerland, not World Athletics. We will be contacting the Swiss government about next steps and, given the widely differing views in the decision, we will encourage them to request referral of the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR for a final and final decision.

“In the meantime, the current DSD regulations, approved by the World Athletics Council in March 2023, remain in effect.”

It was not immediately clear whether the ruling would force an immediate rollback of the rules and whether 32-year-old Semenya will be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris next year.

Semenya was Olympic champion in the 800 meters in 2012 and 2016, but has been banned from that event since 2019 due to testosterone rules and did not defend her title at the Tokyo Olympics.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Semenya by a 4-3 majority of judges

It comes after a 2017 report that noted that a performance boost in women with high testosterone levels in 2021 was labeled “midleading.”

The British Journal of Sports Medicine published a ‘correction’ to the findings, leading campaigners to argue that the rules should be scrapped.

Stephane Bermon, director of the Health and Science Department of World Athletics, and his predecessor Pierre-Yves Garnier, wrote: ‘To be explicit, there is no corroborating evidence for causality in the reported observed associations. We acknowledge that our 2017 research was exploratory.

With this in mind, we recognize that newspaper statements can be misleading by implying a causal inference.

“Specifically,” female athletes with a high fT [testosterone] levels have a significant competitive advantage over those with low fT in 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m, hammer throw and pole vault.”

“This statement should be amended to read, ‘High fT levels in female athletes were associated with higher athletic performance than those with low fT in 400 m, 400 m hurdles, 800 m, hammer throw, and pole vault.’

Semenya claimed World Athletics had ‘stopped me from being who I am’ after she was barred from competing in the Tokyo Olympics

Semenya previously spoke of her disappointment at not being able to compete in Tokyo after losing her appeal to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in 2020.

‘I’m very disappointed. I refuse to let World Athletics drug me or stop me from being who I am,” she said.

“Barring female athletes or endangering our health solely because of our natural abilities puts World Athletics on the wrong side of history.”

Semenya, who was assigned female gender at birth and raised female, is believed to be intersex due to a genetic condition, meaning she has both X and Y chromosomes, a trait usually found in males.

The vast majority of women have only X chromosomes.

The condition leads to increased levels of testosterone – the male sex hormone, which also plays a role in increasing muscle growth.

While the exact effect of excess testosterone on an athlete’s performance is unclear, it is believed to confer an advantage in some sports.

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