World Athletics has approved bombshell new measures to protect female athletes, introducing cheek swabbing to determine once and for all if an athlete is a biological woman
The global body’s president Sebastian Coe said the decision taken by the World Athletics Council was further evidence his organization would ‘doggedly’ protect the female category, and comes after increased pressure from US president Donald Trump.
No timeline for the introduction of pre-clearance testing has been officially set out, but the PA news agency reports World Athletics’ intention is to have the testing in place for athletes wanting to compete in the female category at the World Championships in Tokyo in September.
Coe said on Tuesday: ‘It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about, and particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it.
‘We feel this is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.’
Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies MBE, who has spoken out vehemently on the issue of trans athletes competing in women’s events, was delighted by the news on Tuesday and called for medals to be re-issued for ‘unfairly robbed’ women.
She posted on social media platform X: ‘No more cheating in track and fields by males in a category for females. I’d very much like to see medals re issued for events ruined and women unfairly robbed!’
The decision comes after months of campaigning from Trump, who signed an executive order promising to block transgender athletes from competing in women’s sport within the first few days of his presidency.
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