Athletics

South African sprinter Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic 800-metres champion, says the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) reinstatement of gender verification tests for the 2028 Los Angeles Games is “a disrespect for women”.

The hyperandrogenic athlete on Sunday also expressed her disappointment that the measure was taken under new IOC President Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.

“For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how African women or women in the Global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm,” Semenya said in Cape Town on the sidelines of a sporting competition.

The IOC said on Thursday that only “biological females” will be allowed to compete in women’s events, preventing transgender women from competing.

The IOC had previously used chromosomal sex testing from 1968 to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics before abandoning it in 1999 under pressure from the scientific community, which questioned its effectiveness, and from its own athletes commission.

“It came as a failure, and that’s why it was dropped,” Semenya said.

“It’s like now we need to prove that we are worthy as women to take part in sports. That’s a disrespect for women.”

Semenya has become the symbol of the struggle of hyperandrogenic athletes, a battle on the athletics tracks and then in courtrooms, to assert her rights, which she has waged since her first world title in the 800m in 2009.

In 2025, she won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.

The court’s highest chamber said in a 15-2 ruling that Semenya had some of her rights to a fair hearing violated before Switzerland’s Supreme Court, where she had appealed against a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It had ruled in favour of track’s international governing body, World Athletics.

The original case between Semenya and Monaco-based World Athletics was about whether female athletes who have specific medical conditions, a typically male chromosome pattern and naturally high testosterone levels, should be allowed to compete freely in women’s sports.

The European court’s ruling did not overturn the World Athletics rules that in effect ended Semenya’s career running the 800m after she had won two Olympic gold medals and three world titles since emerging on the global stage as a teenager in 2009.

IOC’s policy shift removes conflict with Trump

In a major shift of policy, the IOC is abandoning rules it brought in in 2021 that allowed individual federations to decide their own policy and is instead implementing a policy across all Olympic sports.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening,” the IOC said in a statement.

They will be carried out through a saliva sample, cheek swab or blood sample. It will be done once in an athlete’s lifetime.

“The policy we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts,” Coventry said.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat, so it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”

The new policy removes a potential source of conflict between the IOC and United States President Donald Trump as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics comes onto the horizon.

Trump issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sport soon after he returned to office in January 2025.

The US leader took credit for the IOC’s new policy in a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday.

“Congratulations to the International Olympic Committee on their decision to ban Men from Women’s Sports,” Trump wrote. “This is only happening because of my powerful Executive Order, standing up for Women and Girls!”

2024 Olympic gender row

While sports such as swimming, athletics, cycling and rowing have brought in bans, many others have permitted transgender women to compete in the female category if they lowered their testosterone levels, normally through taking a course of drugs.

The IOC is bringing in the new policy after the women’s boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics was rocked by a gender row involving Algerian fighter Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association’s 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests.

However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games, saying they had been victims of “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”.

Both boxers went on to win gold medals.

Lin has since been cleared to compete in the female category at events run by World Boxing, the body that will oversee the sport at the Los Angeles Summer Games.

After executing a seismic record-breaking run to smash Jolanda Ceplak’s near 24-year women’s indoor 800m mark last month, Hodgkinson’s attention was fixed firmly on gold in Torun.

This was the final international podium missing from Hodgkinson’s extensive list of honours, after various injuries prevented her from competing at each of the past three editions.

The 24-year-old has also been denied in her three attempts to win world gold outdoors, achieving two silvers and one bronze.

The Briton said that she hoped it would be “fourth time lucky” indoors in 2026 – but she had to overcome misfortune even before beginning her gold medal bid, after the airline which she had travelled with lost her kit.

With her belongings delayed, Hodgkinson was forced to complete her preparations in somebody else’s spikes, which ended up giving her a blister.

But that did not affect Hodgkinson as she dominated Friday’s heat, before cruising to victory in Saturday’s semi-final in a time faster than all but one of her fellow finalist’s personal bests.

Switzerland’s Audrey Werro was the only contender with an indoor best time within three seconds of Hodgkinson’s world record mark, and the Briton’s superiority was evident as she comfortably strode clear inside the venue where she achieved her first international medal five years ago.

Great Britain claimed three gold medals in a sensational 28 minutes to make history and achieve the team’s best haul at a World Athletics Indoor Championships.

Georgia Hunter Bell began Sunday night’s medal rush when she stormed to her first global 1500m title, before pole vaulter Molly Caudery secured her return to the top of the podium in Poland.

A third triumph never looked in doubt as Olympic champion and world record holder Keely Hodgkinson dominated the women’s 800m final to win her first World Indoors gold.

Following Josh Kerr’s 3,000m triumph on Saturday, it guaranteed the British team’s most successful World Indoor Championships of all time, surpassing the three gold medals achieved in 1999.

Returning to the championships at which she represented Great Britain for the first time just two years ago, Olympic bronze medallist Hunter Bell reeled in Ethiopia’s Birke Haylom before bursting clear of her rivals on the final lap to win in three minutes 58.53 seconds.

Caudery, already guaranteed silver by the time her team-mate crossed the line, reclaimed the title which represented her breakthrough success two years ago with a second-time clearance over 4.85 metres.

Great Britain’s Josh Kerr wins gold in the men’s 3000m at the World Indoor Athletics Championships, with Cole Hocker taking silver for USA and and France’s yann Schrub taking bronze in Poland.

Watch the World Indoor Athletics Championships

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