World Athletics have agreed to exclude transgender athletes from women’s events, overturning an initial recommendation that would have included transgender women with reduced testosterone.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said that the overarching priority had to be protecting the female category but acknowledged the difficulty of the decision and said that he did not want decisions to drift or “be kicked into the long grass”.
Coe acknowledged that the decision could face legal challenge but said that a working group would now be set up and that the decision could always change, subject to new scientific evidence. The ban will take effect from March 31 this year.
“Ou instinct was that, while there was uncertainty about that science…we decided that it was impossible to maintain the transgender regulations at the level that they were,” said Coe. “I think that was the right decision. We weren’t prepared to risk the female category.”
The World Athletics Council also voted to lift the doping ban on Russian athletes but immediately imposed a new suspension on Russian and Belarussian athletes in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
More to follow
Source: telegraph.co.uk