Caster Semenya win highlights need for change in athletics: Canadian professor

Champion runner Caster Semenya’s legal victory on Tuesday is a “huge victory for human rights,” says a professor from the University of Toronto.

The European Court of Human Rights decided that Semenya was discriminated against by sport rules that forced her to medically reduce her natural hormone levels to compete.

Bruce Kidd, a professor emeritus of sports policy, says the decision benefits both athletics and the wider world of sports.

Kidd previously helped initiate a successful appeal of a previous attempt to legislate natural testosterone in female athletes by the International Association of Athletics Federations in the case of an Indian sprinter.

The 32-year-old Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion from South Africa, has been barred from running in her favorite 800-metre race since 2019 and has lost four years of her career at her peak.

Kidd says Semenya’s case highlights the double standards in sports, where male athletes are not subject to the same scrutiny for testosterone levels as their female counterparts.

He adds there has been no conclusive evidence that naturally produced testosterone helps athletic performance in the same way that injected testosterone used in doping does.

Kidd says he hopes the ruling forces international sporting bodies to drop narrow and discriminatory rulings when it comes to athletes competing.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11, 2023.

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