Track and field will introduce mandatory DNA sex testing for athletes entering female competitions, its global leader said Tuesday, making it the first Olympic sport to add the requirement.
The move comes amid an increasingly vexed debate over eligibility rules in female sports and comes less than a year after the issue erupted at the Paris Olympics when questions about the qualifications of two women who went on to secure gold medals in boxing led to tumultuous — and at times disturbing — scenes inside and outside of the ring.
The move is essential to protect female sports, said Sebastian Coe of Britain, the head of track’s governing body, World Athletics, and a former double Olympic gold medalist in the 1500 meters. He said the new policy, which will subject competitors to what is described as a noninvasive cheek swab or dry blood DNA test, was part of his vow to “doggedly protect the female category and do whatever it takes to protect it.”
World Athletics said the new tests could be in place in time for its next world championships, in Tokyo in September.
“We’re not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it,” Mr. Coe told reporters in Nanjing, China. “And this, we feel, is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”
Mr. Coe, an unsuccessful candidate in the recent election to lead the International Olympic Committee, has been a polarizing force in his zeal on this issue. The debate over women’s eligibility criteria has led to pitched battles — mostly played out in the bear pit of social media — over who has the right to compete. Track since 2023 has banned transgender athletes from women’s competition.
The new rules eliminate from women’s competition a minority of athletes who do not have the typical female XX sex chromosomes, and have one of several conditions that together are known as differences in sex development, or DSD. Such people can be female to outward appearances, and in some do not know they have DSD. But their unusual genetics can result in high levels of testosterone, and possibly greater muscular development, giving them some of the athletic advantage that men have.
Track and field has been at the forefront of the debate since the South African runner Caster Semenya exploded into the public consciousness by winning gold in the 800 meters at a world championships in 2009. Her victory prompted a backlash from rivals who complained about Ms. Semenya’s appearance, leading to the governing body at the time ordering sex tests. At issue was a rare trait giving her naturally elevated levels of testosterone.
She won gold at the London Olympics in 2012, and again at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, when all three medalists in the women’s 800 meters were all athletes with DSD.
In 2018, track officials began requiring all DSD athletes to take medication to reduce the amount of testosterone in their bodies in order to compete. Now even that allowance — which some athletes challenged — will disappear.
World Athletics said it updated its policy after concluding that the most recent research showed that male advantages exist even before puberty. The performance benefits, it said, between men and women were up to five percent in running events and even higher in the throwing and jumping categories.
Human rights groups previously criticized track and field’s rules, describing the gender eligibility tests and the requirement to restrict athletes’ natural testosterone levels as abusive and harmful.
Mr. Coe tried to play down the effect of latest tests, which all female athletes will have to undergo once.
“The process is very straightforward, frankly,” he said. “Neither of these are invasive. They are necessary and they will be done to absolute medical standards.”
Ms. Semenya challenged the governing body’s previous rules, and the case went to international sports’ top court in 2019, where she lost. Mr. Coe said he was prepared to defend the new rules to the court, as well, should a similar challenge arise.
The issue about who is or isn’t eligible to participate in the female category was prominent at the recent I.O.C. election in which Mr. Coe and five other candidates lost to Kirsty Coventry, a former gold medal-winning swimmer from Zimbabwe, who will take control in June.
Ms. Coventry has said she intends to set up task force, as well as a meeting with different sports, to discuss ideas about protecting women’s sports but was vague about specific policy, calling only for “a little more sensitivity” toward athletes with a difference in sex development. The I.O.C. has previously rejected the idea of sex testing, but Ms. Coventry did not rule out the possibility.
Addressing the topic has also become more treacherous for sports officials since the return of President Trump to the White House. Ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Mr. Trump has been outspoken on the issue, saying there are only two genders — male and female — and ordering visa bans last month to prevent transgender athletes from entering the United States.
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