(Johannesburg) “It’s only the beginning”, hopes the hyperandrogenic South African athlete Caster Semenya on Wednesday, the day after the decision in his favor of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which considered a victim of discrimination.
Semenya, two-time Olympic champion (2012 and 2016) and three-time 800m world champion, but deprived of her favorite race because she refuses hormonal treatment to lower her testosterone levels, won a legal battle before the court based on in Strasbourg on Tuesday. She had seized it after the Swiss justice had confirmed in 2020 a decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) validating a regulation of the International Athletics Federation (World Athletics) which limits the participation in competitions of hyperandrogenic athletes.
Semenya, who has a natural excess of male sex hormones and has been in a tug of war with World Athletics for more than a decade, called the ECHR’s decision in a statement “significant” because it “calls into question the future of all similar rules”.
However, this decision does not invalidate the regulations of the International Athletics Federation and does not directly open the way for Semenya to be reinstated in the 800m without hormonal treatment.
World Athletics even tightened its regulations further in March concerning hyperandrogenic athletes, who must now maintain their testosterone levels below the threshold of 2.5 nanomoles per liter for 24 months (instead of 5 nanomoles for six months) to compete in the women’s category, regardless of the distance.
“My hope is that World Athletics, and beyond that all sports organizations, will take into account the decision of the ECHR and ensure that the dignity and human rights of athletes are respected,” Semenya stressed.
“As the world governing body for athletics, we must, and we do, take into account the human rights of all of our athletes,” the international federation responded in a statement sent to AFP.
“Sports regulations, by their nature, limit people’s rights. When these rights are at stake, it is our responsibility to decide whether this restriction is justified by the purpose, which is, in this case, to protect women’s sport,” she explained.
The sports-judicial soap opera around the emblematic case of Semenya could experience other episodes.
The ECHR’s decision in favor of Semenya, thus reinforced in his fight, “potentially opens the way to a new procedure before the CAS” of the South African athlete against the new even more restrictive regulations of World Athletics, advance with AFP Antoine Duval, specialist in sports law at the Asser Institute in The Hague.
“It remains to be seen whether Caster Semenya will have enough financial resources, strength and willpower to continue his struggle,” he continues.
As of Tuesday, World Athletics had indicated for its part that it would “encourage the Swiss authorities to turn to the Grand Chamber” of the ECHR, its supreme formation which officiates as a court of appeal and renders final decisions, by putting forward the “dissenting opinions” in its decision, delivered by a narrow majority of four judges to three.
In detail, the ECHR found that Switzerland notably violated Article 14 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, relating to the prohibition of discrimination, combined with Article 8, which protects the right to privacy.
Semenya’s last races, a 5,000m and 10,000m in a South African competition, were in early March.
