Caster Semenya, again before a Court to present her case of discrimination | The athlete had had a favorable ruling, but Switzerland appealed the sentence

Ten months after the Court of First Instance of Strasbourg ruled in favor of her, the South African intersex athlete Caster Semenya returned this Wednesday to the Grand Chamber of that same court for the review hearing of her case. Switzerland, backed by the international athletics federation (World Athletics), appealed that ruling handed down on July 11, 2023, which thus went to the Grand Chamber. Now, in a few months, there will be a final ruling, which will not have any further appeal.

Semenya attended the hearing, but did not speak, as she left that work to her lawyers, who highlighted the “personal and professional impact” suffered by the athlete due to the ban on participating in international competitions due to her high level. of testosterone. The lawyers indicated that despite her veto, the athlete did not submit to the imposition of injecting herself with “a harmful, useless and supposedly corrective treatment” to lower her testosterone level and be able to compete.

Semenya came to light at the 2009 World Cups in Berlin, when at the age of 18 she won gold in the 800 meters, her favorite distance, raising a wave of suspicions based on her physical appearance and her manly voice. She was sidelined from competition for eleven months, during which she underwent various medical examinations, before in July 2010 she was cleared to race again.

Starting in 2018, the international federation tightened the conditions of participation regarding testosterone levels, a regulation validated the following year by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), based in Switzerland. The appeal to Swiss justice was rejected in the name of fairness in the competition, which led Semenya to go to the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg.

This instance condemned Switzerland for having washed its hands of the CAS decision and considered that the South African middle-distance runner did not have sufficient institutional and procedural guarantees to assert her arguments of discrimination, which the judges considered “credible” and “well-founded.” .

That ruling called into question the doctrine of many federations regarding intersex athletes, which is based on testosterone levels to allow them to participate in female events. The objection has to do with the fact that the obligation only applies to athletes with an XY genetic system, corresponding to women, and not to those with XX, that of men.

2024-05-16 03:01:00
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