World Athletics will introduce cheek swab sex tests to determine if an athlete is biologically female and eligible to compete in their elite women’s category.
Lord Coe, who will remain president of World Athletics until 2027 following his failed attempt to lead the International Olympic Committee, said that the organisation would “doggedly” protect the female category after the proposal was agreed by the World Athletics Council.
No timeline for the introduction of pre-clearance testing has been officially set out, but there is a hope to have the testing in place for all elite athletes wanting to compete in the female category at the World Championships in Tokyo this September.
“We feel this is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition,” said Coe. “We will doggedly protect the female category, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it. Overwhelmingly, the view has come back that this is absolutely the way to go, within the caveats raised [on testing not being too intrusive].”
Asked whether he felt the policy would stand up to legal challenge and scrutiny, Coe said: “Yes I am, but you accept the fact that that is the world we live in. I would never have set off down this path to protect the female category in sport if I’d been anything other than prepared to take the challenge head on.”
It follows a consultation with athletes on the impact of proposed changes to its regulations on the eligibility of transgender women and athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD).
The effect of the new proposals would be to treat the eligibility of both transgender and DSD athletes the same, with all athletes wishing to compete in the elite female category required to take a cheek swab.
The test, which athletes would only need to take once in their careers, would look for the SRY gene, which is almost always on the male Y chromosome and is used as a highly accurate proxy for biological sex.
World Athletics wants to further update its policy because of “new evidence which clarifies there is already an athletically significant performance gap before the onset of puberty”.
The current rules for DSD athletes require testosterone levels below 2.5 nanomoles per litre for at least six months to compete in any female category event internationally. Previously the requirement to lower testosterone had only applied to athletes competing at distances between 400 metres and one mile. The rule had prevented Caster Semenya, the Olympic 800 metres champion in 2012 and 2016, from continuing at an elite level after she refused medication to lower her testosterone levels.
On announcing the consultation in February, Coe said: “While our current eligibility regulations for DSD and transgender athletes are robust and based on the science available at the time of our last consultation, several scientific developments in this field have emerged since then and it is our role, as the global governing body for athletics, to ensure that our guidelines keep up with the latest information available to maintain a fair and level playing field in the female category.
“Preserving the integrity of competition in the female category is a fundamental principle of the sport of athletics and we look forward to this collaborative consultation process with our key stakeholders in this area.”
Coe failed last week in a bid to become president of the IOC – an election that was won by Kirsty Coventry – but was re-elected in 2023 for another four-year term to lead World Athletics.
