World Athletics’ big move to avoid Olympics-style gender furore by approving mandatory testing

Under new rules, which have been approved by the council of World Athletics, female competitors in all future competitions that carry ranking points will face mandatory SRY gene tests.

Track and field athletes wanting to compete in female events at this year’s world championships will be required to undertake a once-in-a-lifetime test to prove their biological gender, under new regulations designed to avoid a repeat of the transgender boxing scandal at the Paris Olympics.

Under the rules, which have been approved by the council of World Athletics, female competitors in all future competitions that carry ranking points will face mandatory SRY gene tests.

Any athletes whose tests show the presence of male chromosomes will not be permitted to compete in the female category at high-level competitions. Those that pass will be cleared forever.

The new rules will come into effect on September 1, less than two weeks before the world championships in Tokyo, and are sure to provoke a split reaction on what is one of the most divisive issues in world sport.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe. Picture: AFP

In an exclusive interview with this masthead, the President of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, said the gender tests were being introduced to protect the integrity of women’s sport.

“I’m absolutely committed to doing everything I possibly can to protect and preserve the female category,” Coe said.

“If you don’t do that, then we know where that leads.

“I don’t want my sport to witness what many of us witnessed in boxing.”

Last year’s Paris Olympics were rocked by a gender eligibility scandal over the participation of two boxers who were allowedto compete in the female categories despite having previously been disqualified from the world championships after tests detectedmale chromosomes.

These new regulations only apply to the sport of athletics, which has been criticised in the past for its stringent approach to sex tests. But Coe said the rules were necessary to ensure women can compete on a level playing field.

“We are introducing a very simple non-invasive test. It’s a cheap swap test,” he said.

“In its simplest terms, it is absolutely to determine the eligibility or otherwise of an athlete to compete in the female category.

Algeria's Imane Khelif won gold despite the storm around her participation. Picture: AFP

While the introduction of mandatory tests will come earlier than many expected Coe said World Athletics had been working on the policy and rollout for years and involving national federations including Australia.

“We’re not new to this, by the way. This isn’t blue ice appearing. We have been methodical and we have been absolutely focused on shifting the dial here, certainly since 2015, 2016 when I became president,” said Coe, a double Olympic champion in middle distance running.

“We feel this is the natural extension of where we’ve got to and it is very important that there is clarity around this.

“The Australian federation have not only been supportive but have actually been practically very helpful in making sure that they are part of that implementation and even conducting those tests through their own medical teams.

“The federations take this seriously and the vast majority of those federations have not only been supportive, but they’ve actually been pushing us in a practical, helpful way in this direction.”

The new regulations only apply to the sport of athletics. Picture: AFP

The new regulations follow recommendations from a working group that spent over a year studying developments in law, science, sports and society concerning gender-diverse athletes.

Their recommendations included:

• Formally affirm the design of and goals for the Female Category

• Revise the eligibility regulations so that they are consistent with the

design and goals

• Merge the DSD and Transgender Regulations, and, if the effect is to restrict opportunities for DSD athletes, adopt measures to address the reliance interest of those who are currently in the pipeline.

• Adopt a pre-clearance requirement for all athletes competing in the Female Category.

Sebastian Coe has outlined the sweeping changes. Picture: Getty Images

Coe said the regulations won’t apply at lower level and community events but were needed for elite sport.

“I don’t want to stop people from physically enjoying or benefiting mentally or physically from sport,” he said.

“In our case, whether it’s road, field, trail, mountain, track whatever, when it comes to our championships, when it comes to world ranking events, when it comes to elite sport I see a very very clear distinction.

“The risk if we do nothing we lose women’s sport and that’s the risk I wasn’t prepared to take.”