WORLD ATHLETICS TO REQUIRE GENETIC TESTING

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New Eligibility Rules for Women’s Events  

World Ath­let­ics will intro­duce manda­to­ry one-time genet­ic test­ing for female ath­letes, Pres­i­dent Sebas­t­ian Coe announced on Tues­day. The deci­sion fol­lows dis­cus­sions on tight­en­ing eli­gi­bil­i­ty rules dur­ing the gov­ern­ing body’s lat­est coun­cil meet­ing.

Ath­letes will need to under­go a non-inva­sive cheek swab or dry blood spot analy­sis to con­firm the absence of the SRY gene, which deter­mines male sex in humans and most mam­mals. World Ath­let­ics is in the process of select­ing a test provider and final­iz­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for imple­men­ta­tion.

Gender Eligibility in Women’s Competitions  

World Ath­let­ics has long debat­ed eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria for women’s events, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing trans­gen­der ath­letes and com­peti­tors with dif­fer­ences of sex devel­op­ment (DSD). Cur­rent­ly, trans­gen­der women who have under­gone male puber­ty are banned from com­pet­ing in women’s cat­e­gories, and DSD ath­letes with nat­u­ral­ly high testos­terone lev­els must med­ical­ly reduce them to be eli­gi­ble.

A recent work­ing group review con­clud­ed that exist­ing reg­u­la­tions were insuf­fi­cient. Their find­ings sup­port­ed the intro­duc­tion of a pre-clear­ance SRY gene test as part of revised eli­gi­bil­i­ty stan­dards.

One-Time Genetic Test Requirement  

“The pre-clear­ance test­ing will ensure eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the female cat­e­go­ry,” Coe stat­ed. “The process is straight­for­ward and nec­es­sary. Ath­letes will only need to take the test once in their careers.”

Coe expressed con­fi­dence that the new reg­u­la­tions would with­stand legal scruti­ny. “We will dogged­ly pro­tect the female cat­e­go­ry and do what­ev­er it takes,” he empha­sized.

Increased Prize Money for Olympians  

Beyond eli­gi­bil­i­ty rules, World Ath­let­ics is also pri­or­i­tiz­ing finan­cial sup­port for ath­letes. Fol­low­ing its first-ever Olympic prize dis­tri­b­u­tion at the 2024 Paris Games—where gold medal­ists received $50,000—World Ath­let­ics plans to extend mon­e­tary awards to sil­ver and bronze medal­ists at the 2028 Los Ange­les Games. The total prize fund for the next four-year cycle will amount to $51 mil­lion.

Continued Sanctions on Russia and Belarus  

World Ath­let­ics con­firmed there will be no changes to the ban on Russ­ian and Belaru­sian ath­letes, who remain barred from inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion due to Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine. The sus­pen­sion has been in place since 2022.