Female athletes will soon have to undergo a one-time genetic test to compete in women’s events, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said on Tuesday, after proposals to tighten eligibility rules were discussed at the body’s council.
Coe said regulations would be drafted soon and the global body, which governs track-and-field and road-running events, would find a test provider with the capacity to conduct the non-invasive cheek swab or dry blood spot analysis tests.
Athletes would have to take the test just once in their careers to show that they do not have the SRY gene, which determines male sex in humans and most other mammals.
Like other sports, athletics has spent years debating eligibility criteria to compete in women’s events, amid questions over biological advantages for transgender athletes and those with differences of sex development (DSD).
World Athletics now bans transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in women’s events, and requires female DSD athletes whose bodies produce high testosterone levels to lower them in order to be eligible.
A working group found last month that those rules were not tight enough, concluding that athletes who are born male can have advantages over those born female, even if they do not go through male puberty.
A pre-clearance test for the SRY gene was one of several recommendations the group made for revised rules.
“The pre-clearance testing will be for athletes to be able to compete in the female category,” Coe told reporters.
“The process is very straightforward, frankly very clear, and it’s an important one. We will look for a testing provider, we will work on the timelines, and the tests will only need to be done once in the career life of an athlete.”
Coe said he was confident that the new rules would stand up to legal challenges and scrutiny.
“We’ll doggedly protect the female category and do whatever it takes to do it.”
Cash prizes for Olympic champions to increase
Coe said World Athletics was also committed to increasing prize money for Olympic champions. It awarded prize money at last year’s Paris Games for the first time, giving gold medallists $50,000 US each, and has promised that at the 2028 Los Angeles games there will be cash for silver and bronze too.
“That’s something that I’ve always believed: where possible, you make the financial security of the athlete one of your priorities,” Coe said, adding that total prize money over events in the next four-year cycle would total $51 million.
World Athletics said there would be no change to sanctions over Russia and Belarus, whose athletes remain banned from international competitions since 2022 following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
