(Reuters) -The Grand Chamber of the European Court on Thursday upheld a 2023 ruling that double 800 metres Olympic champion Caster Semenya’s appeal to a Swiss Federal Tribunal against regulations that barred her from competing had not been properly heard.
Semenya is appealing against World Athletics regulations that female athletes with differences in sexual development (DSDs) medically reduce their testosterone levels.
The verdict of the Grand Chamber, part of the European Court of Human Rights, does not set aside these rules.
Under World Athletics rules, female DSD athletes must lower their level of testosterone to below 2.5 nmol/L for at least six months to compete. This can be done medically or surgically.
Semenya, 34, is not seeking a return to the track and has turned to coaching, but says she is carrying on the fight for other DSD athletes, who she says are discriminated against.
The verdict, which does not give opinion on the fairness of the regulations, opens the door for Semenya to continue her challenge to the regulations, which she says are discriminatory.
“It’s a battle for human rights now,” the South African recently told reporters. “It’s not about competing. It’s about putting athletes’ rights first. It’s about the protection of athletes.”
The Grand Chamber declared inadmissible Semenya’s complaint of violations to her right to privacy and effective remedy, or that she considers herself a victim of discrimination.
Semenya challenged the rules but lost at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland in 2019 and again at the Swiss Supreme Court in 2020.
But the ECHR ruled in July 2023, by a majority of four votes to three, that Semenya’s original appeal to a Swiss Federal Tribunal against the regulations had not been properly heard.
The Swiss courts, encouraged by World Athletics, appealed that verdict to the ECHR Grand Chamber.
The case could now return to the Swiss courts, or possibly the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Reuters has contacted World Athletics for comment. They have previously denied there is any attempt to discriminate in their regulations.
“World Athletics has only ever been interested in protecting the female category. If we don’t, then women and young girls will not choose sport. That is, and has always been, the Federation’s sole motivation,” the sports body said in a previous statement to Reuters.
“We remain of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Swiss Federal Tribunal both found, after a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence.”
(Reporting by Nick Said; Editing by Alex Richardson and Christian Radnedge)
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