The South African government on Friday threw its weight behind Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya ahead of next week’s landmark hearing on proposed rules that aim to restrict testosterone levels in female athletes.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has proposed rules that would force “hyperandrogenic” athletes or those with “differences of sexual development” to medically lower their testosterone levels below a prescribed amount.
Semenya is challenging the legality of the rules in a case that is to be heard from tomorrow at the Court of Arbitration in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Led by South African Minister of Sport and Recreation Tokozile Xasa, the government said that the rules were “discriminatory” as it launched a campaign in support of hyperandrogenic athletes.
“These regulations appear to be specifically targeting Caster Semenya,” Xasa told a news conference. “It’s a subtle racial incident that we are observing.”
“What’s at stake here is far more than the right to participate in a sport. Women’s bodies, their well-being, their ability to earn a livelihood, their very identity, their privacy and sense of safety and belonging in the world are being questioned,” she added. “This is a gross violation of internationally accepted standards of human rights law.”
The government launched a campaign dubbed #NaturallySuperior to drum up international support in a drive that Sport and Recreation South Africa Director-General Mokoditloa Moemi said was to fight the “unfair” IAAF regulations.
“She is being targeted because she is a woman. Had she been a man we doubt that that would be the case,” Meomi said.
“The world once declared apartheid as a crime against human rights. We once more call people of the world to stand with us as we fight what we believe is a gross violation of human rights,” Xasa said.
She called on individuals and organizations “intolerant of discrimination” to add their voices to a movement “that condemns these discriminatory IAAF regulations which in their nature seek to unfairly exclude other sections of society from competing in sport.”
The regulations could potentially deprive the world from seeing and experiencing the “natural superiority of future athletes” from Africa, she said.
The regulations were due to have been instituted in November last year, but have been put on ice pending next week’s hearings.
On Thursday, Semenya, 28, said she is “unquestionably a woman.”
In a statement, her lawyers said she is “a heroine and an inspiration to many around the world. She asks that she be respected and treated as any other athlete.”
“Her genetic gift should be celebrated, not discriminated against,” they added.
As well as Semenya, the silver and bronze medalists in the 800m at the Rio Olympics, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Kenya’s Margaret Wambui, have also faced questions about their testosterone levels.
Xasa said that the proposal had the potential to hinder any “little girl growing up in an African village with dreams of becoming a top sportswoman.”
Athletics South Africa reaffirmed its “unqualified support” for Semenya and other athletes who might be affected by the IAAF decision.
Semenya has also received support from other sports. Cricket South Africa said it stands behind the “national icon” and denounced the regulations as “an act of discrimination against women in sport.”
“We state categorically and emphatically that women like Caster, who is born with intersex variations, should enjoy the same rights to dignity as all women,” Cricket South Africa chief executive Thabang Moroe said.
“This attempt at systematically ostracizing potential and talent should be condemned in the strongest terms. Together, let’s hit gender discrimination for six,” Moroe said.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later