The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday said that no athlete should be excluded from competition on the grounds of a perceived unfair advantage due to their gender as it released a new framework on transgender inclusion.
No athlete should be excluded based on an “unverified, alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status,” the IOC said.
However, the governing body added that it was not in a position to issue regulations that define eligibility criteria for every sport, leaving it up to federations to determine if an athlete is at a disproportionate advantage.
Photo: AFP
Ruling some athletes ineligible in some sports is still expected with safety noted as a specific issue for combat and contact sports.
“The framework is not legally binding. What we are offering to all the international federations is our expertise and a dialogue, rather than jumping to a conclusion,” IOC Athletes’ Department director Kaveh Mehrabi said. “This is a process that we have to go through with each federation on a case-by-case basis and see what is required.”
The 10-point document is to be rolled out after the Beijing Winter Games next year, replacing the guidelines issued in 2015.
It follows years of consultation with medical and human rights experts and, since 2019, athletes directly affected to help draft guidelines promoting fairness and inclusion.
It is published after the Tokyo Olympic Games where the first openly transgender athlete, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, competed at the Games and defending 800m champion Caster Semenya is among track athletes with intersex conditions and naturally high testosterone levels excluded from their events.
The new framework also moves away from the old policy that said transgender athletes would be allowed to compete provided their testosterone levels were below a certain limit for at least 12 months before their first competition.
The IOC also said sex testing and “invasive physical examinations” used to verify an athlete’s gender were “disrespectful” and “potentially harmful.”
“We really want to make sure that athletes are not pressured or coerced into making a harmful decision about their bodies,” IOC head of human rights Magali Martowicz said.
“Athletes should be allowed to compete but unfair advantage needs to be regulated,” said the IOC, which plans to help fund research into elite performance by transgender and intersex athletes.
“We have not found the solution to this big question,” IOC spokesman Christian Klaue said. “Clearly this is a topic that will be with us for a long time.”
Additional reporting by AP
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
RSS