INTERVIEW: Caster Semenya to lead fight against IOC's gene-screening policy for female athletes

Record ID: 2372154

  • Title: INTERVIEW: Caster Semenya to lead fight against IOC's gene-screening policy for female athletes
  • Date: 31st March 2026
  • Summary: PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA (MARCH 30, 2026) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) TWO-TIME OLYMPIC 800M CHAMPION CASTER SEMENYA SAYING: "It violates safeguarding. It's a failure. It's a shameful manner because when we talk about a girl child getting into sports, girls need to be celebrated. Women need to be celebrated. Women are not supposed to be questioned about their gender. Why
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Caster Semenya IOC Imane Khelif Kirsty Coventry Olympics
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: Various
  • Topics: Olympics,Sport
  • Reuters ID: LVA00L871530032026RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya says she will fight against the IOC’s decision to introduce a gene-screening test to determine if an athlete is female, a policy the South African insists ‘undermines women’s rights’.
    Following an 18-month consultation phase, the IOC unveiled its policy for the Olympic Games, Youth Olympics and Games qualifiers last week.
    It is widely expected to be adopted by international sports federations and become a universal rule for competitors in female elite sports, after years of fragmented regulation that led to major controversies.
    All athletes wanting to qualify or take part in female category events from the LA2028 Olympics onwards will have to undergo an SRY gene test to determine their eligibility.
    "At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat," IOC President Kirsty Coventry said. "So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
    "I really believe this policy is foundationally based in science and led by medical experts," she told a press conference. "We know that this topic is sensitive."
    However Semenya, who fought a lengthy legal battle against World Athletics after she was ordered to take treatment to lower her testosterone levels, insists that the IOC policy is based on flawed science.
    The now 35-year-old has Differences of Sex Development (DSD) but was assigned female gender at birth and grew up living as a female.
    Along with eight other athletes from the global south with what are said to be sex variations, she wrote to the IOC before the announcement of their latest policy arguing womanhood and female biology are not ‘uniform’.
    Speaking to Reuters from Pretoria in South Africa on Monday (March 30), Semenya – who won 800m gold in 2012 and 2016 - said although the IOC consulted her before the rule change, she feels they didn’t listen to her and embarked on no more than a box-ticking exercise.
    (Iain Axon, Conal Quinn)
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