Double 800m Olympic champion Caster Semenya has won her appeal at the European Court of Human Rights after successfully challenging track and field’s testosterone rules.
The double 800m Olympic champion claimed she had been discriminated against after women with natural high testosterone were forced to reduce those levels through medication.
The 32-year-old South African approached the France-based court in February, 2021 after losing appeals to CAS, sport’s highest court, and another plea to the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT) in a long-running legal battle against the regulations.
The Strasbourg-based rights court ruled in Semenya’s favour by a 4-3 majority of judges.
The court also ruled the South African runner was denied an “effective remedy” against that discrimination when the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Switzerland’s supreme court denied her two previous appeals against the rules.
Semenya was the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion in the 800 metres but has been barred from running in that event since 2019 by the testosterone rules and was allowed to defend her title at the Tokyo Olympics.
A release issued by the court stated: “The Court found in particular that the applicant had not been afforded sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards in Switzerland to allow her to have her complaints examined effectively, especially since her complaints concerned substantiated and credible claims of discrimination as a result of her increased testosterone level caused by differences of sex development (DSD).”
A statement from World Athletics read: “World Athletics notes the judgment of the deeply divided Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
“We remain of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Swiss Federal Tribunal both found, after a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence.
“The case was filed against the state of Switzerland, rather than World Athletics.
“We will liaise with the Swiss Government on the next steps and, given the strong dissenting views in the decision, we will be encouraging them to seek referral of the case to the ECHR Grand Chamber for a final and definitive decision.
“In the meantime, the current DSD regulations, approved by the World Athletics Council in March 2023, will remain in place.”
with AP and PA