Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya has been granted permission to compete freely without taking any medication until at least the 25th June, after the Swiss Supreme Court ordered the IAAF to suspend their testosterone regulations.
At the beginning of May, Semenya lost her case to CAS (Court of Arbitration to Sport) which indicated restrictions on natural testosterone levels of female athletes. At the end of May, after a month of uncertainty as the summer season approaches, Semenya and her lawyer Greg Nott appealed against the decision in the Swiss Supreme Court and their appeal was heard. During the hearing, she stated “I am a woman and I am a world-class athlete, the IAAF will not drug me or stop me from being who I am.” Embed from Getty Images
Now, just days later, the IAAF have been forced to suspend their new regulations by the Swiss Court, with the Court issuing an interlocutory order, with the date of this release not yet known.
This means that Semenya can in fact run freely throughout at least the rest of June, with her thanking the Swiss court, exclaiming “I hope following my appeal I will once again be able to run free”. With the IAAF Diamond League now well underway, she has the opportunity to compete in Oslo and Rabat on 13th and 16th June. Embed from Getty Images
This news is just another twist in a long chain of events involving the South African athlete and the IAAF over DSD (differences in sexual development) middle distance athletes like Caster now required to reduce their testosterone levels to below five nmol/L if they want to compete in any distance from 400m to the mile.
On Monday, the IAAF issued a statement, saying, “We have received no information from the Swiss federal court, so we cannot comment at this stage.”
