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≡ WORLD ATHLETICS COUNCIL ≡
“[A]llowing only biological female athletes to compete in the female category was essential to maintaining fairness.”
Following the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing (CHN), the World Athletics Council met on Monday and Tuesday and approved recommendations from its Working Group on Gender Diverse Athletes, to create new conditions for participation in the women’s category:
● “[A] pre-clearance requirement for all athletes competing in the female category.”
● Merging the regulations for Transgenders and for athletes with Differences in Sex Development (DSD) into a single set, and “iif the effect is to restrict opportunities for DSD athletes, adopt measures to address the reliance interests of those who are currently in the pipeline.”
The text of the new regulations will be created in the coming weeks, and “pre-clearance SRY (a genetic surrogate for a Y chromosome) test provider, process and timeline will be agreed.”
World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe (GBR) was asked in a follow-up news conference if he was confident that these new rules would stand up to legal challenge:
“Yes I am, but you accept the fact that is the world we live in. I wouldn’t have set off down this path in 2016, 2017 to protect the female category in sport if I’d been sort of, you know, anything other than prepared to take the challenge head on, We’ve been to the Court of Arbitration on our DSD regulations; they’ve been upheld and they’ve again been upheld after appeal, so 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 explained that there are significant benefits to creating this systemic approach:
“The process is is very straightforward, frankly, very clear and it’s an important one and we need to look, we will look for a testing provider we will work on the timelines.
“The test will only need to be done once in the literally the career life of an athlete, so we’re very clear and that was agreed today in Council. So are these swab tests … largely the two determinants here are firstly finding the right provider – because we are a global sport so you do need to provide a provider with the capacity the scale and capacity to be able to do that cheek swab or the dry blood test.
“It’ll be along the lines of something that will be administered once in the career of a female athlete. … 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. …
“Neither of these are invasive, they are necessary and they will be done to absolutely international medical standards.”
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Coe was also asked about the Olympic prize money program announced by World Athletics in 2024, paying $50,000 to each Paris 2024 winner and promising to expand the prize money to encompass the first three places in Los Angeles in 2028:
“I’m committed to that, that’s something that I’ve always believed that where possible you make the financial security of the athletes one of your priorities.
“Interestingly over the next – I mean forget L.A. for the moment – but over the next four years, there will be over $51 million available to athletes in prize money in our events over that four-year cycle.
“So yeah, we absolutely maintain our commitment to that. I think you can assume it’s not going to be less than $50,000 for the winner. This is there’s nothing new, this is a policy that we agreed and was passed by Council, but in L.A. we will extend it to silver and bronze medalists so overall, the numbers we’re still looking at, but I think you can assume it won’t be less than 50.”
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On the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes, currently shut out of World Athletics events over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was confirmed “that the current Council sanctions are adequate and do not need to be replaced, added to or varied unless either the current circumstances deteriorate significantly or there is a peace agreement.”
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The World Athletics Relays for 2026 was handled to Gaborone (BOT) and to Nassau (BAH) for 2028, showcasing a commitment to Africa and heading back to Nassau for the fifth time.
The new Mixed 4×100 m relay order was approved for the 2025 World Athletics Relays as female-female-male-male.
The new half-marathon and marathon race walking distances will become official as of 1 October 2025. The 300 m hurdles was also approved as an official event, but no reasoning was provided.
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