Caster Semenya was discriminated against by rules that forced her to lower her testosterone levels to continue competing, according to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
The 32-year-old, two-time Olympic 800m champion, was legally identified as female at birth but has a condition that causes her body to naturally produce higher levels of testosterone than women without the condition.
She has not been able to compete at her favorite distance since 2019, following the introduction of limits on testosterone levels for female athletes that would have forced her to use medication.
Earlier legal challenges to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court were rejected, but the ECtHR found that his human rights had been violated.
A statement issued by the tribunal said: “The Tribunal found, in particular, that the applicant had not been afforded sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards in Switzerland to enable her to examine her complaints effectively, particularly as her complaints concerned well-founded and credible claims of discrimination as a result of his increased testosterone level caused by differences in sexual development (DSD).’
Two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya has won an appeal against the controversial testosterone rules that banned her from the Tokyo Olympics
The ruling could see regulations that force Semenya and other female athletes to artificially lower naturally high levels of testosterone to compete at top competitions re-examined.
A legal summary of the case said that article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which deals with discrimination, had been violated, along with article 13 which related to the absence of effective remedies to deal with it discrimination
The ruling statement said the ECtHR chamber was a majority decision, with four of the seven representatives finding that Semenya’s rights under Articles 13 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated.
The chamber judgment is not final and can be referred to a Grand Chamber of the court for further consideration if an application is made.
It was not immediately clear whether the ruling would force an immediate withdrawal of the rules and whether Semenya, 32, would be able to compete at next year’s Paris Olympics.
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World Athletics said in a statement: “World Athletics takes note of the ruling by the deeply divided chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
“We continue to be of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the women’s category, as found by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Court, after detailed assessment and test expert.
“The case was brought against the state of Switzerland, rather than World Athletics. We will be contacting the Swiss government on next steps and, given the strong dissenting views of the decision, encourage them to seek referral of the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR for a final and definitive decision.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in Semenya’s favor by a 4-3 majority of judges
“In the meantime, the current DSD regulations, approved by the World Athletics Council in March 2023, will remain in place.”
It comes after a 2017 report that noted a performance boost in women with high testosterone levels was dubbed “major” by 2021.
The British Journal of Sports Medicine published a “correction” to the findings, leading campaigners to argue that the rules should be dropped.
Stephane Bermon, Director of World Athletics’ Department of Health and Science, and his predecessor Pierre-Yves Garnier, wrote: “To be explicit, there is no confirmatory evidence of causality in the reported observed relationships. We acknowledge that the our 2017 study was exploratory.
“With this in mind, we acknowledge that the statements in the document may have been misleading in implying a causal inference.
Specifically, female athletes with high fT [testosterone] Levels have a significant competitive advantage over those with low fT in the 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m, hammer throw and pole vault.’
“This statement should be amended to: “High levels of fT in female athletes were associated with higher athletic performance than those with low fT in the 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m, hammer throw, and long jump perch”.
Semenya claimed that World Athletics had “stopped me from being who I am” after being banned from competing at the Tokyo Olympics.
Semenya previously spoke of her disappointment at not being able to compete in Tokyo after losing her appeal to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in 2020.
‘I am very disappointed. I refuse to let World Athletics drug me or stop me from being who I am,” he said.
“Excluding female athletes or putting our health at risk solely because of our natural abilities puts World Athletics on the wrong side of history.”
Semenya, who was assigned female at birth and raised a woman, is actually believed to be intersex due to a genetic condition that means she has both X and Y chromosomes, a trait commonly found in the men.
The vast majority of women only have X chromosomes.
The condition leads to high levels of testosterone, the male sex hormone, which also plays a role in increasing muscle growth.
Although the exact effect of excess testosterone on an athlete’s performance is unclear, it is believed to provide an advantage in some sports.
