Hyperandrogenism: ECHR refuses to say whether there was discrimination against athlete Caster Semenya

"A positive result" to "protect athletes," comments Caster Semenya . The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) affirmed this Thursday, July 10, that the South African athlete was denied a fair trial in Switzerland. However, it declared inadmissible the other complaints of the athlete, who has been banned from competition since 2018 because she refuses to lower her testosterone levels.

This was a setback for Semenya, as a chamber of the ECHR, at first instance in the summer of 2023, had found that her rights to privacy had been violated and that she claimed to be a victim of discrimination. The Grand Chamber, a sort of appeals body seized by the Swiss authorities, supported by World Athletics, ruled on Thursday that the court did not have jurisdiction to rule.

However, it upheld the double Olympic champion's request regarding the right to a fair trial. Protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, this right "required a particularly rigorous examination of her case."

However, the court found that this had not been the case in the review carried out by the Swiss Federal Court, which had previously been referred to by Caster Semenya to challenge the award of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), said Mattias Guyomar, President of the ECHR, reading the Grand Chamber's judgment, the decision of which is final. Switzerland must therefore pay Caster Semenya €80,000 in costs and expenses.

Caster Semenya, who first came to public attention at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, won the 800m gold medal there, but her physical appearance and deep voice sparked debate and speculation. The athlete was banned from competition for eleven months and forced to undergo medical tests, the results of which remained secret, before being allowed to run again in July 2010. A two-time Olympic champion (2012, 2016) and three-time world champion (2009, 2011, 2017) in the 800m, Caster Semenya naturally produces a lot of male hormones (androgens), which can increase muscle mass and improve performance.

But in 2018, World Athletics' rules changed the game. These rules were validated the following year by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), then confirmed by the Federal Court in Lausanne, which in 2020 highlighted "fairness of competition" as a "cardinal principle of sport" , on the grounds that a testosterone level comparable to that of men gives female athletes "an insurmountable advantage" .

Also read

The South African athlete's appeals against these two decisions were rejected, but she won her case before the ECHR on July 11, 2023. This decision, however, neither invalidated the World Athletics regulations nor directly opened the way for Semenya to participate in the 800m without pay.

In March 2023, World Athletics even tightened its rules regarding hyperandrogenic athletes . And last March, the international federation approved the introduction of a genetic test as a condition for the registration of female athletes. A date for the introduction of this measure has not been set, but it could be implemented for the Tokyo World Championships this year (September 13-21), according to the organization.