Athletics gene testing 'here to stay', warns Coe / Photo: Fabrice COFFRINI - AFP
Athletics gene testing 'here to stay', warns Coe
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said gene testing for women athletes had been a "largely successful operation" at the world championships in Tokyo, vowing that the process was here to stay.
Track and field's governing body carried out testing for the SRY gene, which is part of the Y chromosome and causes male characteristics to develop.
Athletes who test negative for the Y chromosome are eligible to compete in the women's category in world ranking competitions.
If the test is positive, athletes can only compete in the women's category in non-world ranking competitions or in a category other than that.
"The SRY test was absolutely the right thing to do if you are committed to promotion and preservation (of) and protecting the female category," Coe told a press conference on the final day of action in Tokyo.
"There should be no ambiguity about that in any organisation in sport in the world, then you do everything you possibly can that gives practical application to that and not just warm words.
"That test was an absolutely essential element in the principle and the philosophy that we hold here at World Athletics."
Athletics has long wrestled with eligibility criteria for women's events, amid questions over biological advantages for transgender athletes and those with differences of sex development (DSD).
Transgender women who have gone through male puberty are banned by World Athletics from women's events. The federation requires women DSD athletes, whose bodies produce high testosterone levels, to take medication to lower them in order to be eligible.
- 100% tested -
World Athletics has said its gene test -- carried out using a cheek swab or blood test -- is "extremely accurate," which means false positives or false negatives are "extremely unlikely".
"Let me be clear, the gene test is here to stay," said Coe.
"It's a one-off test. So an athlete takes that test, they never need to take that test again. Throughout the course of their career, we'll have a new cohort of athletes every year that will need to be tested.
"It was largely a successful operation. We set out to test everybody by the time we got into these championships... we got 100% of them tested."
Coe said he appreciated questions about security of data.
"We were testing simply for the presence or otherwise of the Y chromosome," said the two-time Olympic 1,500m gold medallist for Britain.
"It wasn't about genetic testing. Broader than that, it wasn't about DNA.
"When the data, the test is validated, the data is destroyed."
Coe added that support for the tests had been overwhelmingly positive, notably from women athletes.
"Actually we had very few athletes that had any doubts about the importance of doing that," he said.
"Overwhelmingly, women athletes supported it, and I'm really grateful that so many member federations were able to help expedite the tests, our area associations as well, and sport came together on that."
H.Wieser--NWT
