Semenya loses landmark legal case against IAAF over testosterone levels

The South African 800m Olympic champion Caster Semenya is considering an appeal after losing her landmark legal case against athletics’ governing body, the IAAF, in a decision that could end her career as an elite athlete.

The ruling by the court of arbitration for Sport means that Semenya, who has not been beaten over 800m since 2015, will have to take medication to significantly reduce her testosterone if she wants to run internationally at events between 400m and a mile.

The sports scientist Ross Tucker, who was part of Semenya’s team of experts at Cas, believes it will mean the South African could run the 800m in around seven seconds slower – turning her from a world-beater into an also-ran at that event. However the indications are that she may decide to step up to the 5,000m, where the IAAF’s new rules regarding athletes with differences in sex development (DSDs) do not apply.

The surprise verdict was announced by the court of arbitration for sport on Wednesday after three arbitrators had spent more than two months deliberating over the complex and highly contentious case.

Announcing its ruling, Cas agreed that the IAAF’s policy was “discriminatory” to athletes with differences in sexual development (DSDs) such as Semenya. However two of three arbitrators accepted the IAAF’s argument that high testosterone in female athletes confers significant advantages in size, strength and power from puberty onwards, and said the policy was “necessary, reasonable and proportionate” to ensure fair competition in women’s sport.

It means that all DSD athletes, who are usually born with internal testes, will have to reduce their testosterone to below five nmol/L for at least six months if they want to compete internationally all distances from 400m to a mile. The IAAF, which welcomed the news, said its policy would come into place on 8 May.

Semenya, who has long argued that her unique genetic gifts should be celebrated not regulated, said she would not give up her fight and believed that the DSD regulations would be one day overturned.

“I know that the IAAF’s regulations have always targeted me specifically,” she added. “For a decade the IAAF has tried to slow me down, but this has actually made me stronger. The decision of the Cas will not hold me back. I will once again rise above and continue to inspire young women and athletes in South Africa and around the world.”

Explaining its verdict, Cas said that Semenya’s team had been unable to prove the IAAF’s policy was “invalid” during the five-day tribunal in February. Crucially it upheld a rule that discrimination in sport is legal provided it is justified.

As it explained in a statement: “The panel found that the DSD regulations are discriminatory but that, on the basis of the evidence submitted by the parties, such discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics in the restricted events.”

However, in its 165-page ruling, the Cas panel expressed “some serious concerns” as to whether the DSD regulations would be applied fairly. It also accepted there could be problems in three other areas:

• Difficulties for athletes in implementing and complying with the DSD regulations due to having to frequently take medication

• The absence of concrete evidence supporting the inclusion of certain events under the DSD regulations, including the 1500m and one mile

• The potentially negative and harmful side-effects of hormone treatment for DSD athletes.