The runner of Olympic champion Semenya ends the legal fight of the fight against the rules of sex eligibility, says the lawyer

The runner Olympic champion Caster Semenya puts an end to a judicial challenge of seven years against the rules of sexual eligibility in athletics, his lawyers said on Thursday, despite a decision at the European Court of Human Rights in July which seemed to have rekindled one of the most controversial cases of sports.

Patrick Bracher, lawyer for Semenya, said in an email to the Associated Press, they would not make his appeal before the Swiss Supreme Court, which was an option and what many supposed to be Semenya’s next step after the decision of the European Rights Court.

“Caster’s legal challenge has reached the highest possible court with a very successful result and will not be deepened in the circumstances,” wrote.

Semenya is a double Olympic gold medalist in the 800 meters from South Africa which was forbidden to run in its favorite race during major international meetings such as the Olympic Games and the World Championships since 2019 because she refused to respect the rules and take medication to artificially reduce her hormonal levels.

Since 2018, she has brought her legal battle against the rules applied by the athletics of the three -short athletics opportunity organization; The highest sports court based in Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Court and the European Court of Human Rights.

She argued that the rules relate to her rights. She lost her calls to the court of arbitration for sport and at the Swiss Federal Court.

However, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in July that it had not had a fair hearing at the Swiss court, and it had not correctly considered some of the complex arguments. This opened an avenue to continue his challenge.

The career ended in Peak

Semenya was the dominant runner of the world at a distance and was undefeated in more than 30 races when she was excluded. Now 34 years old, she has evolved towards training, regulations effectively putting her career.

She was the face of fiercely controversial sexual eligibility rules in sports since she won the world championships in adolescence in 2009 and was forced to undergo sexual verification tests.

Semenya has one of the many conditions called differences in sex development, or DSD. It has the chromosomal male model typical of XY but also female physical features and high levels of natural testosterone. DSD conditions are sometimes called intersex conditions.

Semenya is not transgender despite the fact that her case is often confused with the division debate on the participation of transgender athletes in female competitions. She was identified as a woman at birth, raised as a girl, and has always identified as a woman.

World Athletics says that Semenya and a small number of other DSD athletes on the international path have testosterone levels in the male range, which gives them an unfair advantage over other women due to the hormone link with muscle mass and cardiovascular performance.

The gain of DSD athletes advantageous with testosterone has been challenged in one of the many complex details of the historic case of Semenya.

Follow the now even more strict regulations

The track and the field have introduced new rules governing women with natural testosterone high in 2011 in a decision considered as a direct response to the arrival of Semenya. The regulations have been made more strict over the years and the last change of rule introduced earlier this year is moving away from testosterone surveillance and obliges women to compete on an international path to undergo a genetic test to check the presence of a chromosome Y.

If they fail the genetic eligibility test on single sex, they are prohibited from female competitions. The new rules entered into force on September 1 before the world championships of last month.

Bracer noted in his email at AP that current regulations are very different from these semena disputed in court when his case began seven years ago. But Semenya’s recent victory at the European Rights Court could provide a basis for a new challenge by another athlete against the current regulations, he said.

While the case of Semenya has made athletics, the main battlefield on eligibility for sex for almost two decades, other high -level sports such as swimming have evolved to block women with DSD conditions of competition. The case of Semenya was often considered a precedent so that other sports introduce their own restrictions.

Boxing was mired in a sexual eligibility scandal at the Paris Olympic Games last year for the participation of Imane Khelif in Algeria and Taiwan Yu-te Lin after the officials said they had previously failed unpertified sexual verification tests.

Boxing has also introduced genetic sexual tests and Khelif, which won a gold medal in Paris, followed Semenya and called on them at the Arbitration Court for Sport.