LAUSANNE.- He International Olympic Committee (IOC) this Thursday conditioned participation in the women’s events of the Olympic Games 2028 in Los Angeles chromosomal testing, already in force from 1968 to 1996 in the Olympic world.
Admission to women’s Olympic competitions “is now reserved for people of the biological female sex”, who do not carry the SRY gene, the IOC explained in a statement, after a meeting of its executive committee.
The body thus turns its back on the rules issued in 2021, which allowed each federation to set its policy, and the IOC simultaneously excludes transgender athletes and a large part of intersex athletes, natural carriers of genetic variations and considered girls from birth.
This new policy, the first major measure of the Zimbabwean president Kirsty Coventry since his election a year ago as head of the IOC, it will apply from the 2028 Games and “is not retroactive.”
In this way, the Olympic gold obtained in the Paris Games by the Algerian boxer is not in danger. Imane Khelifwho herself acknowledged being a carrier of the SRY gene, although she was born as a girl and has defended her femininity when being attacked for her gender.
The responsibility for organizing the tests will fall on the international federations and national sports institutions. These tests will be done through a saliva test, a mouth scraping or a blood sample and must be performed “only once in the athlete’s life,” indicated the IOC.
Legal problems?
This measure has already been in force since last year in three disciplines: athletics, boxing and skiing, although its application faces practical and legal problems.
The IOC had already resorted to chromosomal tests of femininity between 1968 and 1996 Atlanta Olympicsbefore renouncing them in 1999 under pressure from the scientific community, which questioned their suitability, and from their own athletes’ commission.
