World Athletics plans pre-clearance testing of female category track and field athletes

(CNN) — World Athletics plans to introduce biological pre-clearance tests for track and field athletes before they can compete in the female category, the sport’s governing body announced Tuesday.

These tests will screen athletes’ genetic samples to determine whether they contain the SRY gene, or “a genetic surrogate for a Y chromosome,” according to the organization.

The decision comes following a World Athletics Council meeting where the council agreed to adopt multiple recommended conditions of “eligibility in the female category.”

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the tests will be “non-invasive” during a Tuesday press conference.

“Cheek swab or dry blood tests,” Coe said. “It’s along the lines of something that will be administered once in the career of an athlete, a female athlete.”

Coe said the organization is still looking for a provider to carry out the tests.

“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,” Coe told reporters.

“Preserving the integrity of competition in the female category is a fundamental principle of the sport of athletics,” World Athletics said in a Tuesday press release.

The organization added, “The majority of stakeholders consulted last month on the proposed new eligibility conditions for the female category agreed that allowing only biological female athletes to compete in the female category was essential to maintaining fairness.”

Coe reiterated this standpoint during the press conference.

“This we feel is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”

Transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sport has been a topical subject of late.

President Donald Trump took executive action in February to deliver on a political issue central to his 2024 campaign: banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” surrounded by dozens of women and some young girls in athletic uniforms.

“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” the president said.

The order is two-pronged, leaning on compliance with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that receive funding from the federal government, as well as federal engagement with the private sector.

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