World Athletics has revealed plans to implement gender eligibility testing for athletes prior to competition in the female category, the governing body announced on Tuesday.
In a press conference in Nanjing, China following the World Indoor Championship last weekend, World Athletics head Sebastian Coe addressed the media and noted that the tests would include cheek swabs or dry blood spot analysis exams.
“The pre-clearance testing will be for athletes to be able to compete in the female category,” Coe said. “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.”
The announcement comes after World Athletics said in February that it would ramp up efforts to explore a consultation period to adjust its rules for transgender and difference of sex development athletes. The proposal of cheek swabs was first presented during reports of the consultation period.
Since 2023, the governing body has banned transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competition in female category events.
“We’ve been to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on our DSD regulations,” Coe said. “They’ve been upheld, and again they’ve been upheld after appeal. We will doggedly protect the female category and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it. And we’re not just talking about it.”
The gender tests are said to be non-invasive and Coe said World Athletics is searching for a vendor to administer the exams.
“It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about and, particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female, women’s sport but actually guaranteeing it and this we feel is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining absolute focus on the integrity of competition,” he said.
The group said it hopes the tests could be in place for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September.
And while the indoor track and field season officially wrapped in Nanjing, Coe is rebounding from being among six candidates who lost to Kirsty Coventry for International Olympic Committee president last Thursday. Coe was viewed as a favorite of sorts, but only received eight votes.
Coventry, a former gold medal-winning swimmer from Zimbabwe, won 49 of 97 eligible votes and secured a majority of the secret ballot in the first tally, in a process that was expected to last at least five rounds. She will take office in June in a term that will last eight years.
