In July I wrote a post on Semenya and how her presence was making women competitions unfair for the non-hyperandrogenic females. I did not hesitate to pronounce the word "scandal" because this is precisely how I feel about the situation. I was writing there that a honest attitude of Semenya would have been to announce her retirement of competition in October before the date of enforcement of the new regulations. But this is not what Semenya had decided. In fact she had already filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration on Sport concerning the IAAF regulation on "differences in sexual development".
And a few days ago arrived the news that the IAAF had to delay the implementation of its Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification from November to March. The official justification of this was that
A contested application to stay the implementation of the DSD Regulations would have caused additional delay and created new uncertainty for athletes seeking to compete in the women’s category.
Sir Sebastian chimed in saying that,
“We have reached a compromise with the claimants. We have agreed not to enforce the regulations against any athlete until the contested regulations are upheld. In exchange, they have agreed not to prolong the process".
The IAAF Health & Science Department Director, Dr. Stéphane Bermon, pointed out the major drawback of this decision saying:
"This five-month shift in the timetable from a November to a late March start date could result in affected athletes having to sit out the bulk of the outdoor season leading up to the IAAF World Championships... The original November 1 start date was designed specifically to avoid this".
It is now expected that the hearing at the CAS will take place in February with a decision at the end of March.
So, what will happen at the CAS? Nobody knows. The Court had already, in 2015, invalidated a previous IAAF regulation concerning hyperandrogenic women. When the current rules made their appearance, Ross Tucker (a sports physiologist for whom I have real respect) voiced his pessimism concerning the new rules, since the research they were based upon was not showing that a men-level testosterone concentration in women was anywhere near to bridging the gap of the 10 % difference in performance between man and women. And this 10 % difference was pivotal in the 2015 CAS ruling.
In a recent article Tucker and collaborators have also challenged the methodology of the article by Bermon and Garnier, concluding that one cannot do "the right thing" in the wrong way. Their argument is based on their analysis of the data of Bermon and Garnier, an analysis which identified several errors in the original paper. In fact upon elimination of all problematic data points "the change in aggregate times when using corrected data is of a similar magnitude to that of the testosterone effects that the authors seek to identify". I suggest that you visit the Sports Scientists site and read the article of Tucker. And if you are not science-oriented just read his conclusions where he explains in a very clear way the ins and outs of the situation.
The Semenya saga continues and the situation is far from pleasant. If the CAS invalidates the IAAF regulations once more you can expect to see more and more fake women in athletics, a situation even worse than that of the era of rampant doping.
PS And despite all this Semenya has made the top-ten list of candidates for the title of athlete of the year. Frankly, what are the people at IAAF thinking?
Find the intruder
And a few days ago arrived the news that the IAAF had to delay the implementation of its Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification from November to March. The official justification of this was that
A contested application to stay the implementation of the DSD Regulations would have caused additional delay and created new uncertainty for athletes seeking to compete in the women’s category.
Sir Sebastian chimed in saying that,
“We have reached a compromise with the claimants. We have agreed not to enforce the regulations against any athlete until the contested regulations are upheld. In exchange, they have agreed not to prolong the process".
The IAAF Health & Science Department Director, Dr. Stéphane Bermon, pointed out the major drawback of this decision saying:
"This five-month shift in the timetable from a November to a late March start date could result in affected athletes having to sit out the bulk of the outdoor season leading up to the IAAF World Championships... The original November 1 start date was designed specifically to avoid this".
It is now expected that the hearing at the CAS will take place in February with a decision at the end of March.
So, what will happen at the CAS? Nobody knows. The Court had already, in 2015, invalidated a previous IAAF regulation concerning hyperandrogenic women. When the current rules made their appearance, Ross Tucker (a sports physiologist for whom I have real respect) voiced his pessimism concerning the new rules, since the research they were based upon was not showing that a men-level testosterone concentration in women was anywhere near to bridging the gap of the 10 % difference in performance between man and women. And this 10 % difference was pivotal in the 2015 CAS ruling.
In a recent article Tucker and collaborators have also challenged the methodology of the article by Bermon and Garnier, concluding that one cannot do "the right thing" in the wrong way. Their argument is based on their analysis of the data of Bermon and Garnier, an analysis which identified several errors in the original paper. In fact upon elimination of all problematic data points "the change in aggregate times when using corrected data is of a similar magnitude to that of the testosterone effects that the authors seek to identify". I suggest that you visit the Sports Scientists site and read the article of Tucker. And if you are not science-oriented just read his conclusions where he explains in a very clear way the ins and outs of the situation.
The Semenya saga continues and the situation is far from pleasant. If the CAS invalidates the IAAF regulations once more you can expect to see more and more fake women in athletics, a situation even worse than that of the era of rampant doping.
PS And despite all this Semenya has made the top-ten list of candidates for the title of athlete of the year. Frankly, what are the people at IAAF thinking?
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