Athletics will introduce mandatory DNA sex testing for athletes entering female competitions, its global leader said, making it the first Olympic sport to add the requirement.
The move comes amid an increasingly vexed debate over eligibility rules in female sports and comes less than a year after the issue erupted at the Paris Olympics when questions about the qualifications of two women who went on to secure gold medals in boxing led to tumultuous — and at times disturbing — scenes inside and outside of the ring.
The move is essential to protect female sports, said Lord Sebastian Coe of Britain, the head of track’s governing body, World Athletics, and a former double Olympic gold medallist. He said the new policy, which will subject competitors to what is described as a noninvasive cheek swab or dry blood DNA test, was part of his vow to “doggedly protect the female category and do whatever it takes to protect it.”
World Athletics said the new tests could be in place in time for its next world championships, in Tokyo in September.
“We’re not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it,” Coe told reporters in Nanjing, China. “And this, we feel, is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”
Coe, an unsuccessful candidate in the recent election to lead the International Olympic Committee, has been a polarising force on this issue. The debate over women’s eligibility criteria has led to pitched battles over who has the right to compete. Track since 2023 has banned transgender athletes from women’s competition.
South Africa’s Caster Semenya at the 2012 Olympics in London.Credit: AP
The new rules eliminate from women’s competition a minority of athletes who do not have the typical female XX sex chromosomes, and have one of several conditions that together are known as differences in sex development, or DSD. Such people can be female to outward appearances, and some do not know they have DSD. But their unusual genetics can result in high levels of testosterone, and possibly greater muscular development, giving them some of the athletic advantage that men have.
Track and field has been at the forefront of the debate since South African runner Caster Semenya exploded into the public consciousness by winning gold in the 800 meters at a world championships in 2009. Her victory prompted a backlash from rivals who complained about Semenya’s appearance, leading to the governing body at the time ordering sex tests. At issue was a rare trait giving her naturally elevated levels of testosterone.
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