BREAKING: Study finds that women runners born with high testosterone levels enjoy a "significant competitive advant

Collect me if me wrong, but didn't CAS already admitted that elevated testosterone level in female athletes may enhance their performance to some degree, in 2015?

Back then, IAAF estimated women with high testosterone level may perform 1-3% better compared to those with lower level. CAS accepted that 1% estimation and reject the latter, due to it had been based on undocumented data.

They still suspended the hyperandrogenism regulation, because such increase in performance is nowhere near male level (10-12%), and there was no evidence to support their 10 mol cutline to be appropriate to determine who are more male than female performance-wise, right?

So, what's the difference to make this to be a sufficient evidence for them to reinstate the regulation? Or just, they simply couldn't find something better?

Any expert here? I'm curious.

Pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

the true percent advantage wrote:

Comparing a 1:57 800 meter time to 2:00 does not mean a 2.5% (3 second) advantage if you actually look at the race. Semenya out-kicks the pack in the last 200 meters or so, which means a 3 second advantage over the last 30 seconds, which is (at least) a 10% advantage.

Right answer. He/she is so dominant, nobody can shake her. Then kicks it home as if his competitors were hobby joggers.

Again, this is the federation's terrible policy choices, not personal to Semenya.

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Separately, if only there was a way to increase Test that was easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and never tests positive.

Interestingly people have speculated that Semenya is deliberately not trying to break the WR because it would speed up her own demise.

Is this why there is such a huge gap in women's races between say 1st and 10th place compared to men's races? Some women are closer chemically to men? Seems women runners have a much larger spectrum than men.

sdfzsdf wrote:

We draw it here:

Females with no DSDs (Disorders of Sexual Differentiation)---> in this race.

Everyone else---> in that race.

If some female has no discernible "condition" (xxy, internal testes, whatever) yet has a high T, fine, female.

Too complicated.

Everybody: in this race.

This scenario is the most fair as everybody will be having to compete to the same standards and they won't be able to hide behind excuses of age or sex or testosterone. In general faster runners have genetic advantages over slower runners; it is just the way things are and athletes should just deal with this.

simplifier wrote:

Too complicated.

Everybody: in this race.

.

Including the Para-lympics guys.

If leaked test results, if they are to be believed, showed Castor to have T levels three times higher than the highest females at the world level. That would put her somewhere just below or above 200.

By her own statements refusing surgery, we can infer that she has internal testes, since the only reason surgery would be an option would be to remove internal testes.

We are still left with the question of what ethical clearance did the vast majority of those who's doping control tests where used in the research give .

My assumption is nil.

And as such the athletes should sue and the paper withdrawn !

If withdrawn then the whole testes saga resolution will have do be shelved for a good more years .

Perhaps until after the testes athletes break the WR by accident rather than cruising round in the 1.55's .

Summary

Research breaches ethical rules .

Your assumption is wrong is my guess. I'd be quite surprised that a manuscript could be produced and pass editorial scrutiny without proper ethical controls.

Having now read the paper, the unfortunate thing is that indeed, any athletes with DSDs were NOT included. Only regular females.So we still have no idea what a person with T levels in the male range might run in the ladies 800.

We can guess though ;-/

The doping control forms say that samples will not be used for research . At least they did .

The researchers will be told permission has been given by IAAF but not so .

Thus should the athletes sue and should the paper be withdrawn ??

Wada cheat the law !!

fisky wrote:

By her own statements refusing surgery, we can infer that she has internal testes, since the only reason surgery would be an option would be to remove internal testes.

Can you quote these statements refusing surgery?

In the last year or so (probably long ago as well but I forget), you could hear the British commentary saying things like 'Look at Semenya, she is running SO EASY there, effortless' etc.

Birmingham wrote:

The doping control forms say that samples will not be used for research . At least they did .

The researchers will be told permission has been given by IAAF but not so .

Thus should the athletes sue and should the paper be withdrawn ??

Wada cheat the law !!

They currently have a consent line for use in research. You can check "no" but I would thing all the samples they used, either checked "yes" or consent was otherwise obtained. I'm not sure what the consent forms from the '11 and '13 WCs looked like specifically or whether the athletes were compelled to somehow to consent. I seriously doubt however that IAAF did anything wrong. The consent indicates samples will be not identifiable.

Further, nearly all athletes (females anyway) would happily consent (I would think) to participate in a study designed to protect the integrity of ladies athletics.

study finds this study finds that...bla bla bla wtf just ask me next time

Multiplication wrote:

kjfdlkjfklj wrote:

How much is a 4.5% advantage for a 2:00 800 runner? What are we talking here 3,4 seconds?

4.5% times 2:00 is 5.40 seconds.

about the same amount semenya improves when "she's" on T therapy and when "she" is not.

havent read all the pages yet, but i would bet that Retardo Canova will try to say that high T in kenyan women doesnt make them better, it only works on non elites from USA and europe.

Research ethics .

Staggered that some think that Iaaf would do nothing wrong.

Consent needs to be explicit and informed .

Ticking a box would not deal with such .

But then can't see athletes ticking box .

Unless under duress ?

As for the athletes knowing what the research was about and thus ticking the box seems more than doubtful .

Men also are involved and what would they care .

Still very very doubtful that the correct consent was given and if so what then , iaaf sued , paper withdraw ,

testes women still flirting on the side of not breaking the WR ?

IAAF cheats to get result they want .

The paper clearly states: Consent: OBTAINED.

How you believe that the IAAF, the researchers, and the journal all could or would all be so stupid as to ignore basic protocols in clinical research is baffling.

Give it up.

get this wrote:

Caster Semenya is not a woman.

She is. Feel sorry for her. But wasnt she supposed to take drugs to bring her levels in line with other women? That only seems fair to me

Further, this 2014 paper also establishes in more detail the consent protocol.

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article-lookup/doi/10.1210/jc.2014-1391

Said paper also illustrates that, in that sample pool (800+ normal female elites and 4 DSD athletes), that the total and free T levels were astonishingly different.

Total T 26.5x higher

Free T 43.75x higher

While only 4 DSD athletes were analyzed, their results, imo only, just eyeballing, were well clustered for the sample size.

The current 2017 paper only considers normal women (I believe) and finds a significant advantage among those with high (but still normal) T.

I am unsure why the DSD crowd was excluded in the 2017 work.

Wait, no I'm not, certain results might have been a little too personally revealing if you get what I'm saying...esp if they broke it down by event type.