Francine Niyonsaba breaks her first WORLD RECORD!!!

griles17 wrote:

asdfghj wrote:

There wouldn't be the testosterone without the chromosomes.

yes, and there wouldn't be chromosomes if the person were dead, but that doesn't mean we should ban the living from women's track and field. you failed to make an argument.

well actually, there would be, but they wouldn't do much good. you get my point (hopefully).

Good time for a man. This is crazy. She is cheating. Not breaking a rule, but cheating. The effect of Testosterone go way beyond "400m to a mile".

I love all of the people who think it is fine to let him beat up on the girls. Ironically that mob in a way is all pushing for equality despite his chromosomes. If that is the case why don’t we just abolish men and women classifications all together. Let’s just compete as humans? Women’s sports on a youth, amateur and professional level would disappear instantly nor would they be competitive at any top level amongst men.

What's interesting about all of this is I think we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. DSD athletes have only been competing for short period of time and mostly likely the one's we are seeing perhaps are not the most talented. It was stupid for anyone to think they would be good at the short sprints and long distances.

600 sq ft apartment, need roommate wrote:

It is almost like testosterone helps at all distances. How could the IAAF have known this in advance? If only there was some data. Like results from every race.

IAAF (WA) knew it, and therefore tried to apply their rule across all the events.

CAS didn't.

OozmaKappa wrote:

I used that factual description and I was censored in Orwellian fashion, my words changed to "intersex" which is misleading and not factual.

Yeah, that's sad Letsrun is sensoring now for using factual information. Other than having underdeveloped male sex organs which appear similar to female sex organs (caused by the DSD), there is nothing about Niyonsaba that is intersex or even female biologically. Because of the DSD and lack of fully developed male sex organs, she looked female at birth and thus was legally named a female, but biologically she is clearly a male with DSD.

TrackCoach wrote:

DSD athletes have only been competing for short period of time and mostly likely the one's we are seeing perhaps are not the most talented. It was stupid for anyone to think they would be good at the short sprints and long distances.

What? They've been competing since the beginning of sport.

follow the science wrote:

OozmaKappa wrote:

I used that factual description and I was censored in Orwellian fashion, my words changed to "intersex" which is misleading and not factual.

Yeah, that's sad Letsrun is sensoring now for using factual information. Other than having underdeveloped male sex organs which appear similar to female sex organs (caused by the DSD), there is nothing about Niyonsaba that is intersex or even female biologically. Because of the DSD and lack of fully developed male sex organs, she looked female at birth and thus was legally named a female, but biologically she is clearly a male with DSD.

Chances are that Niyonsaba was not "legally named a female" at birth or at any time in childhood. When Niyonsaba was born in 1993, the births of the majority of (black) children in sub-Saharan Africa were not registered with government authorities. In some countries, such as South Africa and Namibia, black parents historically made a point of hiding the births of their children from their governments. Which is part of the reason Caster Semenya didn't get a South African birth certificate until 2007, when Semenya was 16 and already a junior track sensation. By then, a number of officials in the same government that issued Semenya a BC saying "Female" were already planning to put Semenya on the world stage as South Africa's "golden girl" runner.

The likelihood that Francine Niyonsaba's birth was registered with Burundian government authorities at any time during childhood is further diminished by the fact that Francine was born when Burundi was engulfed in the same ethnic strife and mass killings that led to the genocide in Rwanda next door - and just months before the start of the Burundian Civil War characterized by continual chaos, bloodshed and the collapse of state institutions. The civil war in Burundi didn't end until Niyonsaba was 12.

Complicating the situation further, both sides during the Burundian Civil War made extensive use of child soldiers. During Niyonsaba's childhood, the Burundian military regularly conscripted male children age 7-16 for its militias, forcing tens of thousands of boys to become front-line combat soldiers. This would have provided a powerful incentive for parents of children born with male disorders of sex development resulting in atypical-looking male genitals to claim that such children were female - and to tell the children this as well to make it less likely they would get caught out when armed adult soldiers showed up looking for boys to take away.

ImpaIa31 wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Would you prefer the description "male"?

"Male", a word that does not apply to you.

I can see how gender issues are confusing for you.

OozmaKappa wrote:

It must be said this is a very soft WR performance, worth 1241 points on the scoring tables, equivalent to a 3:55 1500m or a 1:55 800m.

However, this is only the beginning for these ***deleted by LRC*** dsd athletes and the real WRs are in danger in these coming years.

LRC note. Please do not call intersex athletes male. She is legally known as a woman.

A legal description is not the same as a biological description. In this case, they are clearly not the same. If they were there would be no issue.

arte wrote:

Meanwhile, the current rule of "from here to there is forbidden, otherwise ok" is quite absurd, seemingly created just to get Caster Semenya out of the sport.

People on both sides of the issue think that the current rule is absurd.

griles17 wrote:

asdfghj wrote:

There wouldn't be the testosterone without the chromosomes.

yes, and there wouldn't be chromosomes if the person were dead, but that doesn't mean we should ban the living from women's track and field. you failed to make an argument.

Your argument was the chromosomes don't matter. But chromosomes are how it is determined whether you are male or female. You can make that distinction in an embryo. It's a clear black and white distinction. If you are XX, you should be eligible to compete in the female category. It solves the transgender and intersex (for lack of a better word) problems and is consistent with why a separate category for females exist in the first place.

You say it's the testosterone that's the problem. Would you really want two categories based on a numerical testosterone level? Are there any XX women who have testosterone levels that are at the levels banned by WA and CAS?

Now, stop this parody! wrote:

Time for World Athletics to act! How can this be allowed?Of course more testosterone gives better performance at all distances .

Gender categories need to be completely eliminated from the sport as gender is an outdated concept for sports. Replace the gender categories with testosterone categories instead. This needs to be done ASAP by World Athletics.

asdfghj wrote:

MatthewXCountry wrote:

It's soft, full stop. Kipyegon or Hassan would run 5:17 no problem. That is what their 1500m PBs are worth. This is not a real story until the record actually drops to a reasonable time.

So it's not a problem that she wins Diamond League races, it's not a problem that she breaks world records as long as those records are soft? Semenya never set any world records, but it was a problem. Mboma is on a trend that is problematic for women's sprints. Now is the time to fix this. The longer XY athletes are allowed to compete in the women's division, the harder it's going to be to change.

Go complain about the Diamond League Final results on that thread if you want, at least that result means something. It is worth discussing the fairness of female athletes with Y chromosomes or elevated testosterone competing in meaningful competitions like those.

This thread is about the 2000m "best", which is not worth anything. O'Sullivan's "record," if we could even call it that, is maybe worth 4min for 1500. I don't think these uncommon distances are worth commenting on, especially when there are hundreds of XX women who have run faster equivalent 1500m times.

new rules needed wrote:

Now, stop this parody! wrote:

Time for World Athletics to act! How can this be allowed?Of course more testosterone gives better performance at all distances .

Gender categories need to be completely eliminated from the sport as gender is an outdated concept for sports. Replace the gender categories with testosterone categories instead. This needs to be done ASAP by World Athletics.

Sports are divided by biological sex. In humans, biological sex is a stable category that is just as valid today as it has been for millions of years. In fact, the notion that there are two discrete biological sexes in humans is more legitimate and supported by science than ever before today because of what has been learned about the thousands of physical differences between the two sexes in recent decades, and also because of contemporary medical knowledge and understanding of DSDs in humans.

Biological sex is also the fairest way of dividing sports into two general categories because more than a century of extensive sports records show beyond a doubt that males outperform females in nearly all sports, and they do so even prior to the puberty of adolescence.

Are you really alleging that biological sex is now "an outdated concept for sports"? If so, please explain exactly why. Also please explain why you think sex categories in sport should be replaced "with testosterone categories instead" as you say WA needs to do ASAP.

new rules needed wrote:

Now, stop this parody! wrote:

Time for World Athletics to act! How can this be allowed?Of course more testosterone gives better performance at all distances .

Gender categories need to be completely eliminated from the sport as gender is an outdated concept for sports. Replace the gender categories with testosterone categories instead. This needs to be done ASAP by World Athletics.

The claim that "of course" naturally-produced "testosterone gives better performance at all distances" is only true of XY runners whose natural T comes from testes and who have the male physiology that allows them to make use of the T that their testes make like males customarily do, whether they're XY DSD like Niyonsaba or XY born with normal male urogenital anatomy like most blokes. But it's not true of XX females.

When doped on exogenous testosterone and other androgens, XX female athletes obtain physical attributes that improve athletic performance. However, higher endogenous, natural testosterone in XX females does not lead to, nor is it correlated with, better sports performance.

On the contrary, endogenous, natural T in XX females higher than the normal female range (0.06-1.68 nmol/L) is a sign of health conditions - PCOS, CAH, a cancerous tumor, pregnancy - that make it difficult for most XX female people to achieve or maintain the kind of tip-top physical fitness that competitive sports require, and which impair our ability to turn in impressive, record-breaking performances in track & field at any level of competition.

When the T (and other hormone) levels of 839 elite athletes competing in women's international track & field were measured in 2014, researchers (Bermon et al) found that elite XX athletes in track & field from around the world had T levels no different from sedentary women of the same age.

75% of the world's most elite athletes competing in women's international track & field who were tested had T under 0.91 nmol/L; 99% had T under 3 nmol/L. Some had T as low as 0.01 nmol/L.

By contrast, the athletes competing in women's elite international athletics who were known to be XY DSD - one of whom apparently was Caster Semenya - had T of 15.6-29.3 nmol/L, in the middle to the high end of the normal male range (7.7-29.4 nmol/L).

Moreover, the study found that XX "Female athletes involved in long-distance running consistently showed lower T and DHEAS concentrations when compared with athletes involved in events requiring strength, power, and speed..."

In short, the much higher levels of endogenous, natural T that XY males produce from their testes and respond to in male-typical ways is why XY males develop considerable sports advantages over XX female people, but higher endogenous T is not what gives XX females with ovaries and female physiology an edge in athletics competition over other XX females.

XX females produce and respond to natural, endogenous T very differently to how XY males do, whether or not the XY males are normally developed or were born with atypical anatomy due to XY DSDs. XY DSD athletes like Semenya and Niyonsaba competing in women's elite international athletics in recent years do not make or respond to T like XX female people do. These athletes make and respond to T the way XY males do.

For XY DSD athletes like Niyonsaba, Semenya and now Mboma, having natural T in the male range provides enormous performances advantages in women's competition. But an XX female athlete with natural T that high would have no chance of performing well on the track - she'd be far too ill to compete at all.

Since endogenous T plays a key role in the development and sports performance of XY males but not of XX females, why use this particular measure to classify all participants in sports? Why divide sports into categories using a yardstick that only suits the one-half of the population that has XY chromosomes, testes and male physiology? Why judge XX females by XY male standards?

what evidence is this? do we really have a big set of reliable, generalizable, methodologically sound evidence?

runragged is unquestionably the most able 'journalist' at LRC. I hope she isnt offended by being called a journalist. I mean this in the traditional sense of some one who actually investigates and presents a case.

maybe brojos and JG should think about not posting 'jounalism' without discussion relevant topics with runragged first. it may save them some embarassment.

Not at all offended to be called a journalist. I worked much of my adult life as a reporter, researcher, writer and editor for different kinds of enterprises including daily newspapers, a wire service, a major weekly newsmagazine, monthly magazines and nonfiction book publishing.

I especially appreciate your kind acknowledgment after the pummeling I got on another thread this week from a particularly irascible poster with a penchant for invective who repeatedly told me I'm stupid, lazy, too stupid to know that I am stupid, criminally stupid, ignorant, dangerously uninformed, with the research skills of a 10-year-old and entirely lacking in reading comprehension. Wasn't the first time my intelligence and views have been impugned on LRC, and I imagine it won't be the last.