“This opens Pandora’s box.”Those were the words uttered Thursday by Tom Virgets, executive director of amateur boxing’s global governing body, 24 hours after a landmark ruling from the highest legal authority in sports that female track athletes with naturally elevated levels of testosterone must suppress the hormone to participate in certain races. Virgets, like the leaders of other sports, has been scrambling to digest the highly charged ruling that’s likely to have major implications on elite women’s sports well beyond track and field, the focus of Wednesday’s judgment. The Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled on intersex athletes after a decade of heated debate and litigation, but the ruling may only serve to spark further debate rather than provide a final answer. The subject, as controversial as it is emotive, has divided opinion across the spectrum, including within the court, which ruled 2 to 1 against Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic 800-meter Olympic champion from South Africa, who had challenged the restrictions drawn up by the International Association of Athletics Federations, or I.A.A.F., track and field’s world governing body. In its most literal sense, the judgment means some female athletes will no longer be considered as such for some races — from 400 meters to a mile — unless they take measures to suppress testosterone production.

Source: International New York Times May 02, 2019 18:56 UTC