World Athletics maintain stance over Semenya despite court ruling

Europe's top human rights court ruled in favour of Olympic runner Caster Semenya on Tuesday, saying courts in Switzerland should give her a new chance to fight a requirement that female athletes with high natural testosterone take drugs to lower it.

But in a swift response, World Athletics wrote on its website “We note the judgment of the deeply divided Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). We remain of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable, and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Swiss Federal Tribunal both found, after a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence. The case was filed against the state of Switzerland, rather than World Athletics. We will liaise with the Swiss Government on the next steps and, given the strong dissenting views in the decision, we will be encouraging them to seek referral of the case to the ECHR Grand Chamber for a final and definitive decision. The current DSD regulations, approved by the World Athletics Council in March 2023, will remain in place.”

The South African double Olympic 800m champion, 32, approached the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in February 2021 after losing appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), sport's highest court, and the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT) in a long-running legal battle.

The ECHR ruled, by a slender majority of four votes to three, that Semenya's original appeal against World Athletics regulations had not been properly heard.

“The court found in particular that the applicant had not been afforded sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards in Switzerland to allow her to have her complaints examined effectively,” the ECHR said in a statement.

Semenya may have claimed victory after the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ruled that she was discriminated against in her appeal against World Athletics’ regulations on women athletes with naturally high testosterone, but this does not mean the South African star runner is immediately allowed back to competition. 

In a nutshell, this is a technical victory, but substantially for her to return to the track, many processes would still need to happen.