By Jamey Keaten / The Associated Press
LAUSANNE, Switzerland—The longtime standoff between Olympic champion Caster Semenya and track and field’s governing body over issues of gender, hormones and performance in sports reached a pivotal phase on Monday, as a key tribunal began hosting a planned five-day hearing in a case that could have massive repercussions throughout sports.
The two-time 800-meter gold medalist from South Africa came and went from the offices of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday without addressing reporters after a marathon opening session, but her legal team and International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) lawyers were still jockeying for position in the court of public opinion.
Both sides acknowledged that the ruling in the case—which isn’t expected until late March—could have huge implications, notably over where to draw the line between the genders and how to ensure fairness in top-tier competition.
Semenya’s lawyers issued a statement during the 10-hour session criticizing the IAAF’s release of a list of names of five experts that they planned to put forward to make their case. Her legal team said that maneuver violated the spirit of confidentiality over the proceedings “in an effort to influence public opinion.”
Her team of four lawyers said that it had received the three-judge panel’s OK to release the names of its own experts on Tuesday.
Insisting on the need for fairness, the IAAF defended “eligibility standards that ensure that athletes who identify as female but have testes, and testosterone levels in the male range, at least drop their testosterone levels into the female range in order to compete at the elite level in the female classification.”
The IAAF has proposed eligibility rules for athletes with hyperandrogenism, a medical condition in which women may have excessive levels of male hormones such as testosterone. Semenya wants to overturn those rules.
The scheduled five-day appeal case is among the longest ever heard by the sports court. CAS Secretary-General Mathieu Reeb expressed hope for a decision by the three-judge panel by the end of March.
Neither of the delegations spoke on the way out of Monday’s proceedings.
“The core value for the IAAF is the empowerment of girls and women through athletics,” IAAF President Sebastian Coe said as the day began. “The regulations that we are introducing are there to protect the sanctity of fair and open competition.”
A colleague then pulled Coe away from reporters and said he wouldn’t say more.
The IAAF wants to require women with naturally elevated testosterone to lower their levels by medication before being allowed to compete in world-class races from 400 meters to 1 mile.
Reeb said the case was “unusual and unprecedented” and said the decision “will be important.”
South African lawyer Norman Arendse, who is helping present the case for Semenya, called it “a highly confidential process.”
Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the country’s national women’s football team, meanwhile, have both pledged their support for fellow South African Semenya.
In October last year three human-rights experts from the United Nations wrote an open letter to the IAAF calling their proposal “unjustifiable,” while the group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has labeled it discriminatory.
South Africa’s Sports Minister Tokozile Xasa echoed HRW’s stance and now both CSA and the South African women’s football team have weighed in on the issue.
“We stand here as the cricket fraternity joining all the voices throughout the world, to denounce the IAAF Gender Regulations as an act of discrimination against women in sport,” CSA chief executive Thabang Moroe said in a statement posted on their web site.
“We state categorically and emphatically that women like Caster, who is born with intersex variations, should enjoy the same rights and dignity as all women.
“We honor, celebrate and recognize the equality of all women in sport.”
He continued by calling on “all morally astute global citizens” to back Semenya in her case.
“This attempt at systematically ostracizing potential and talent should be condemned to the strongest terms,” Moroe added.
“Together, let’s hit gender discrimination for six.”
The women’s football coach Desiree Ellis, meanwhile, called Semenya an inspiration for her side.
“Caster has been very brave and strong, through all the challenges she’s faced she’s come out on top,” Ellis said.
“So, her strength inspires us.
“She’s our beacon of hope, going out there and competing with the top athletes in the world and coming out on top.”
With Insidethegames
Image credits: AP