Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya is ending a seven-year legal challenge against sex eligibility rules in track and field, her lawyers said Thursday, despite winning a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights in July. Patrick Bracher, a lawyer for Semenya, said in an email to the AP that they wouldn't take her appeal back to Switzerland's high court, which was an option and what many presumed to be Semenya's next step after the European rights court ruling. "Caster's legal challenge reached the highest possible court with a highly successful outcome and will not be taken further in the circumstances," Bracher wrote.
Semenya is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 800 meters from South Africa who has been banned from running at major international meets since 2019 because she refused to take medication to artificially reduce her hormone levels. Since 2018, she has argued in three courts that the rules infringed her rights. She lost her appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and at the Swiss Federal Tribunal. However, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that she hadn't had a fair hearing at the Swiss tribunal and that it hadn't properly considered some of the complex arguments. That opened an avenue to continue her challenge.
Semenya was the world's dominant middle-distance runner and was unbeaten in more than 30 races when she was barred. Now 34, she has moved into coaching, with the regulations effectively ending her career. She has been the face of fiercely contentious sex eligibility rules in sports since she won the world championships as a teenager in 2009 and was forced to undergo sex verification tests. Semenya has one of a number of conditions known as differences in sex development. She has the typical male XY chromosome pattern but also female physical traits and high levels of naturally occurring testosterone. She was identified as female at birth, raised as a girl, and has always identified as female.
story continues below
World Athletics says Semenya and a small number of other DSD athletes in international track have testosterone levels in the male range, giving them an unfair advantage over other women. Track and field introduced rules governing women with high natural testosterone in 2011 in a move seen as a direct response to Semenya. The regulations have been made stricter over the years. The latest rule change this year requires women competing in international track to undergo a genetic test to check for the presence of a Y chromosome. If they fail the one-off test, they're banned from female competitions.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
