Semenya now Double Olympic and World Champion

Myles Splitz

Upgraded in London as Savinova has her results from 201-2013 stripped following CAS appeal

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/feb/10/caster-semenya-given-london-2012-gold-after-rival-is-stripped-title-mariya-savinova-farnosova

El Caballo

Myles Splitz wrote: »

Upgraded in London as Savinova has her results from 201-2013 stripped following CAS appeal

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/feb/10/caster-semenya-given-london-2012-gold-after-rival-is-stripped-title-mariya-savinova-farnosova

Controversial and often mentioned but something needs to be done about the Semenya issue. At this stage, It is obvious that the advantage she has is much greater than the benefits of doping and can't be allowed to go on, it's a sensitive and highly complicated situation but has just a big of an impact on athletes who are biologically disadvantaged, it's pretty much the exact same for a clean athlete as competing against a known doper. It's not Semenya's fault obviously but the IAAF need to act quickly as the event is becoming farcical with Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui destroying the field with ease.

It must be incredibly demoralising for the likes of Bishop who quite possibly would be Olympic Champion in a fair World.

average_runner

El Caballo wrote: »

Controversial and often mentioned but something needs to be done about the Semenya issue. At this stage, It is obvious that the advantage she has is much greater than the benefits of doping and can't be allowed to go on, it's a sensitive and highly complicated situation but has just a big of an impact on athletes who are biologically disadvantaged, it's pretty much the exact same for a clean athlete as competing against a known doper. It's not Semenya's fault obviously but the IAAF need to act quickly as the event is becoming farcical with Semenya, Niyonsaba and Wambui destroying the field with ease.

It must be incredibly demoralising for the likes of Bishop who quite possibly would be Olympic Champion in a fair World.

If she was designed that way by nature it's natural. Next we will be giving out about Kenyans in the marathon.

El Caballo

Women's sport is protected by definition. The analogy of Kenyans "genetic advantage" is million miles away and a million times leds complicated than the biological advantage that athletes with Hyperandrogenism have in womens sport.

https://sportsscientists.com/2016/05/hyperandrogenism-women-vs-women-vs-men-sport-qa-joanna-harper/

People can hop on the pc brigade but what is happening is not right, it's not the athletes fault but the issue is of huge importance.

average_runner

El Caballo wrote: »

Women's sport is protected by definition. The analogy of Kenyans "genetic advantage" is million miles away and a million times leds complicated than the biological advantage that athletes with Hyperandrogenism have in womens sport.

https://sportsscientists.com/2016/05/hyperandrogenism-women-vs-women-vs-men-sport-qa-joanna-harper/

People can hop on the pc brigade but what is happening is not right, it's not the athletes fault but the issue is of huge importance.

So you want sport to manufacture woman instead of nature?

Spirogyra

Athletics is riddled with unfairness,( don't know what the answer is to the Semenya case) the European XC Championships being won by Kenyans and Ethiopians on an annual basis has destroyed that competition.

El Caballo

average_runner wrote: »

So you want sport to manufacture woman instead of nature?

She is not biologically a female by nature. It sounds insensitive but its the truth. Her gender may be female as that is what she socially identifies as but biologically, she is intersex. Nature is not as decisive or simple as you think, my background is in plant science and I can tell you that intersex plants are pretty common in nature.

I don't like the testosterone inhibitors as taking them will alter a person but I really don't like the unfairness of the huge biological advantage that intersex athletes have in women's sport. To put this into perspective, all 3 800m medals in Rio went to athletes who have being on testosterone inhibitors in the past, for a condition that is so rare, that is either incredible or very predictable, I'll let you decide which one you think.

These athletes who went 1,2 and 3 in Rio have levels of testosterone that would be indicative of heavy doping in biological females and that is when those 3 athletes have their levels suppressed, imagine how high those levels are now when they are allowed to produce as much testosterone as their bodies can. The fact of it all is that Semenya is neither biologically female or male, she is intersex which is something society can't handle as the need to group people by social norms is inherent. A lot of people confuse biological sex with gender, sex is the way you are born and gender is what you identify as. I have no issue with Semenya's gender identity but the biological advantage she has while competing is my issue.

average_runner

El Caballo wrote: »

She is not biologically a female by nature. It sounds insensitive but its the truth. Her gender may be female as that is what she socially identifies as but biologically, she is intersex. Nature is not as decisive or simple as you think, my background is in plant science and I can tell you that intersex plants are pretty common in nature.

I don't like the testosterone inhibitors as taking them will alter a person but I really don't like the unfairness of the huge biological advantage that intersex athletes have in women's sport. To put this into perspective, all 3 800m medals in Rio went to athletes who have being on testosterone inhibitors in the past, for a condition that is so rare, that is either incredible or very predictable, I'll let you decide which one you think.

These athletes who went 1,2 and 3 in Rio have levels of testosterone that would be indicative of heavy doping in biological females and that is when those 3 athletes have their levels suppressed, imagine how high those levels are now when they are allowed to produce as much testosterone as their bodies can. The fact of it all is that Semenya is neither biologically female or male, she is intersex which is something society can't handle as the need to group people by social norms is inherent. A lot of people confuse biological sex with gender, sex is the way you are born and gender is what you identify as. I have no issue with Semenya's gender identity but the biological advantage she has while competing is my issue.

I say athletics can't stop her as there be a massive court case.

I don't believe she should be put on drugs to lower her limit as that is as wrong as normal drug cheats.

It's a tough one that won't be tackle for a long time.

jamule

I think this paragraph answers alot.

The choice the iaaf is left with is either ban intersex athletes from competing or not. Sadly i think they are going to have to ban them.

"I think that comparing intersex women to extraordinarily tall basketball players misses a key point. It is not important to protect shorter male “ballers” from taller ones. It is fundamentally important to protect female athletes from those athletes who undergo male-type puberty. The most essential element of women’s sport is that it is practiced by testosterone-challenged athletes. Even the CAS panel that suspended the IAAF’s HA regulations “has accepted that testosterone is the best indicator of performance difference between male and female athletes”.

Dubgal72

This article (sportsscientist) also references the subset of the IAAF within the spectrum of global 'human rights'. Technically, the IAAF can set whatever markers it likes to preserve the integrity of traditional male/female athletic demarcations. (At the same time, this inferred impunity leaves the association open to legal suits. And quite rightly so.)

Therein lies the problem, imo: 'traditional demarcation'. Intersex is a 'thing' and it's not going away. Nor is transgenderism. Perhaps we need to expand our definition of the sexes and incorporate a third sex for athletics, using - for now, until a more perfect measurement presents - the original HA range of levels.

clear thinking

Great to see her get the medals in the face of adversity and instead of cheats. Society seems to have survived her being allowed compete in the female category.

youngrun

jamule wrote: »

I think this paragraph answers alot.

The choice the iaaf is left with is either ban intersex athletes from competing or not. Sadly i think they are going to have to ban them.

"I think that comparing intersex women to extraordinarily tall basketball players misses a key point. It is not important to protect shorter male “ballers” from taller ones. It is fundamentally important to protect female athletes from those athletes who undergo male-type puberty. The most essential element of women’s sport is that it is practiced by testosterone-challenged athletes. Even the CAS panel that suspended the IAAF’s HA regulations “has accepted that testosterone is the best indicator of performance difference between male and female athletes”.

I agree . Not a level playing field and the top 3 are benefitting from this
Alternatives - allow everyone else take the same level of testosterone to keep it a level playing field? Or request the intersex athletes reduce the testosterone levels. ? Or ban.

average_runner

youngrun wrote: »

I agree . Not a level playing field and the top 3 are benefitting from this
Alternatives - allow everyone else take the same level of testosterone to keep it a level playing field? Or request the intersex athletes reduce the testosterone levels. ? Or ban.

You can't ban them, they haven't done anything wrong.

What are the health risk if allow everyone take a high level of testosterone? Could a few law cases in court?

Myles Splitz

http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1047027/coe-hopeful-of-iaaf-success-in-appeal-to-cas-over-gender-testing

jamule

She has every right to compete but it has to be fair for every woman.

She has had a change to her body (through no fault of her own) that relates to the fundamental competetive difference between men and women.

Clearlier

This is an incredibly difficult situation to discuss as it inspires very strong emotions in an awful lot of people. A little bit towards that end I don't think that it's a good idea to talk about specific people but instead about intersex athletes. When individual athletes are brought into the discussion then too often it becomes a discussion about them and their personality which is no basis to make these kind of decisions.

One of the first questions that needs to be asked when considering this issue is why we have separate competitions for men and women. If (as I think that most people do) you think that we should have separate competitions then it necessarily follows that you have to have a method of distinguishing between men and women. For the vast, vast majority of people it isn't difficult to make that distinction but for a tiny minority it is. The discussion then is about how and where you draw that line.

Most of the discussion is about intersex people who present as women rather than intersex people who present as men for the simple reason that having female characteristics as a man is not performance enhancing in the way that having male characteristics as a woman is. On the other side of the argument though you have transgender women - people who are born anatomically male but who identify as female - often from a very early age.

IIRC, at the moment the rule is that transgender athletes have to have maintained their testosterone levels within what's considered a normal female range for a year before they are allowed to compete as women. The argument about whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete as women has been had in other threads and I don't particularly want to rehash them but I do think that it's important to point out that if the CAS ruling about levels of testosterone not being a valid method of distinguishing between men and women for the purposes of athletic competition is upheld then the rules for transgender athletes will almost certainly have to be revisited sooner rather than later.

Some argue that it should be based on gender i.e. if you present and identify as female then you are female therefore you should be allowed to compete against other women. I'm all in favour of the first part of the argument but I have some difficulties with the second part and it all goes back to why we have separate competitions for men and for women.

If, as I believe most people do, you think that we make the distinction because there are fundamental physical differences between men and women which mean that elite women can never hope to compete with elite men then I think that you have to make the distinction between men and women for the purposes of athletic competition based on physical characteristics rather than psychological ones.

Now, IIRC the CAS ruling was based on there not being enough evidence that testosterone levels explain enough of the difference in performance between men and women to justify its use as a method of distinguishing between men and women. Thus they suspended the rule but gave the IAAF two years to conduct further research.

I don't know what the IAAF have been doing but one road that they could and perhaps should have been following is identifying other distinguishing characteristics that when combined with testosterone levels explain the difference. They could also go down the road of accepting that testosterone levels don't explain all of the differences (which seems self-evident to me given that as far as I know no intersex athlete has threatened to compete at the same level as men) but that they confer enough of an advantage that no non-intersex athlete no matter how talented could compete with an intersex athlete. It's a difficult area not least because elite athletes tend by their very nature to be physiological outliers. They're not usually good examples of the general population.

This isn't an easy discussion to have and there are a lot of losers from it but if (as I do) you think that there should be separate competitions for men and for women then I think that it's a discussion that has to be had.