South African track superstar and 800m double Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya won an appeal in a case against track and field testosterone levels regulation in female athletics on Tuesday.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, ruled in favor of the 32-year-old, who was born as an intersex individual with differences in sexual development (DSD), stating that she had previously been discriminated against and was denied an “effective remedy”.
Semenya was prohibited in 2019 from participating in events ranging from 400m to a mile in the women’s category unless she takes medication to suppress her testosterone levels, but she filed an appeal to the ECHR in February 2021 after losing pleas to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) and the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT).
#BreakingNews – South African track queen and two-time Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya wins appeal at European Court of Human Rights.#CasterSemenya #trackandfield #Olympics #SouthAfrica #Afrosports #EU pic.twitter.com/agNppSgzGY
— AfroSport (@AfroSportTV) July 11, 2023
The ECHR ruling has now pointed out that the Swiss government failed to protect her rights from being discriminated after the European nation’s Supreme Court failed to overturn a CAS ruling from about three years ago.
An Olympic champion in 2012 and 2016, and a three-time World Champion, Semenya has been engulfed in a long-running battle with the athletics governing body, World Athletics since the introduction of the testosterone levels rules in 2018.
She claimed that the hormone-reducing drugs could jeopardize her health and further stated that the judgment from CAS and Swiss Federal Tribunal prevented her and other athletes with Differences in sex development (DSD) from relying on their god-giving abilities.
The ruling prevented her from participating in the 800m event at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021, as she was unable to defend the title she won in Rio 2016.
Despite the ruling which was in favour of the South African by a 4-3 majority vote, it is unclear whether it would force World Athletics to rescind their rules or if she would be allowed to return to the track and probably participate at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
