[WATCH] New rules roadblock for Semenya
Challenge: SA’s Caster
World and Olympic champion Caster Semenya’s athletics career is at a crossroads after World Athletics (WA) updated their rules.
Last Thursday, WA banned transgender women (individuals who experienced male adolescence) from competing in female track and field events regardless of their levels of testosterone.
Athletes with sex development differences (DSD), such as Semenya and Olympic 200msilver medalist Christine Mboma of Namibia, are not transgender and were legally identified as female at birth but have a medical condition that leads to some male traits, including high levels of testosterone.
#BREAKING: World Athletics, the international governing body for sport, has banned trans-women from competitions.
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WA argues gives them the same kind of unfair advantage as transgender athletes.
Now, in order to compete at next year’s Olympics, she would have to undergo hormone-suppressing treatment for six months, something she has said she will never do again, having undergone the treatment a decade ago under previous rules.
Mboma has not publicly stated whether she would be willing to undergo hormone therapy.
Another athlete, Olympic 800m silver medalist Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, also has said she would not undergo treatment.