Semenya wins in court, is able to race all distances without lowering her testosterone

Absolutely absurd. Let Semenya in the xy ranks.

Hot take: I actually think Semenya makes the 800 more interesting. The races are always faster and there's always intrigue about whether a race will be the one where she is finally beaten in the 800. It is better to have Semenya run and carry the field to a fast 800 and occasionally get challenged then to have a slower, tactical 800 like that in Stockholm. Diamond League meets, World Championships and Olympics are always more entertaining if its fast.

Also to the people saying this is the end of Women's T&F, has the high amount of doping busts meant nothing? I would think that would be far worse for the sport. And last time I checked, this high testosterone issue has only affected the 800. The 1500, 3K steeple, 5k and 10k don't have this issue and neither do the sprints. So to claim that this is the end of the sport is asinine.

would be awesome if everyone at the starting line declined to take off at the gun in protest...just let Caster and the rest of the Y'ers run

Intersex athletes must lower testosterone to compete in any event between 400m-Mile (so including 1k and 1500m), not just the 800m.

On a trolling remark, if Semenya can't compete and all these 800's are slow, we should just get rid of the women's 800m. At this point, a men's 10k would be more exciting.

ANY biological female who lines up to compete against Semenya is just compounding the problem.

Ladies, boycott and event Caster signs up for. Don’t contribute to the sport’s demise.

Simple wrote:

In track and field why not call the men’s division the open division.

Then have a restricted division based on people who are XY with a limited testosterone level. Call it the restricted division.

The division would be like a weight class in boxing or wrestling. No moralizing of who is a woman or not. It would be who is eligible for that division based on the criteria of the restricted division.

I see people on social media who are so stuck on the label men or women that they lose the purpose of having a restricted division.

`Why have an own category for a group of inferior human athletes? I am a feminist. equal pay for equal skill. if a human is the fastest in the 100m give the human gold. don't discriminate for gender

San Diego Hobby Jogger wrote:

Agreed.

As for court jurisdiction I am guessing IAAF had a big bank account in Switzerland that the court can levy

The IAAF has activities in countries all over the world and is subject to jurisdiction in all sorts of countries, including the United States. The only way that it can exist and operate in the manner it does is that countries voluntarily agree to allow the CAS to have jurisdiction over cases. As part of that, there is also necessarily a review by courts. Since CAS is a swiss arbitration organization, the swiss courts are it. This is all codified in the Olympic charter and recognized by both governments and Olympic federations (which are usually governmental or quasi governmental organizations). This has all been codified for a long time.

I find it weird that people do not understand that countries are not going to give up the ability to resolve disputes to a group or arbiters without any judicial review. Or that people who claim to be interested in such issues can't be troubled to learn even the basics of how they work.

All biological females need to boycott any race Semenya enters. This circus needs to end.

Armstronglivs wrote:

So the Swiss Federal Court is able to hear appeals from CAS. It is interesting though to see that very few appeals are successful and the Federal Court has overturned only one CAS decision on the merits of the case. The odds are against Semenya succeeding.

I agree. Temporary "stays" like this are rather common. It should have been anticipated. I'm a bit annoyed at myself for not mentioning it because I did think it was likely to happen, once I read about her appeal last week.

Very uphill for her.

Overall I am in favor of the testosterone adjustment but I have to say the 800 is incredibly weak right now without Semenya and the others. That race in Stockholm the other day could barely have been more pathetic. I'm not sure if the top females have been avoiding that distance or it is simply a lazy underachieving event to begin with. The fade rate over that final 200 should not be as dramatic as it is.

Semenya often wasn't doing anything particularly great down the stretch. She was passing tired fillies. I would argue that if the 800 were on the level it should be, like the 400 hurdles, then multiple women without any testosterone questions should be running in the 1:55 to 1:57 range regularly, instead of once in a great while.

TheProblemIs wrote:

The problem is, people here are always confused what a woman is. They will bore you to tears about XY. They can't get to grips that women don't want to be defined like this. Most (but of course not all) women support this notion. The don't want to be categorized by men as to how to define them.

It's nearly always the men complaining about this, very strange. It's almost like they want to dictate what a man or woman is. Get a life.

Yeah but we’re talking about athletic competition and fairness to all competitors

When she shows up with a Blankenship beard one day, will anyone say anything ?

Hobby Yogging wrote:

Hot take: I actually think Semenya makes the 800 more interesting.

Weapons and obstacles would make the 800 more interesting too, but that's not really the point

After reading over it again, it appears I didn't write very clearly. I'm aware they must lower their T levels to compete in those events. What I meant was that in those other events, there aren't any women that are being accused of such, rather this problem seems to be specific to the 800.

TheProblemIs wrote:

The problem is, people here are always confused what a woman is. They will bore you to tears about XY. They can't get to grips that women don't want to be defined like this. Most (but of course not all) women support this notion. The don't want to be categorized by men as to how to define them.

Nature has lots of facts that people wish weren't true. Renaming them "definitions" and shooting the messenger who utters them makes no difference.

Clam Evans wrote:

Hobby Yogging wrote:

Hot take: I actually think Semenya makes the 800 more interesting.

Weapons and obstacles would make the 800 more interesting too, but that's not really the point

So you picked out the first sentence of my post and left the rest of the context out? My point was that having her in the races leads for faster times and there is intrigue as to whether she will be beaten. The faster times make diamond league meets, which are the equivalent to regular season MLB and NBA games, more entertaining and is key in growing the sport. You would've gotten that point if you actually read more than a sentence.

Simple wrote:

In track and field why not call the men’s division the open division.

Then have a restricted division based on people who are XY with a limited testosterone level. Call it the restricted division.

The division would be like a weight class in boxing or wrestling. No moralizing of who is a woman or not. It would be who is eligible for that division based on the criteria of the restricted division.

I see people on social media who are so stuck on the label men or women that they lose the purpose of having a restricted division.

Great idea (exept you got confused with xy and xx). That's what we do. Just have an open division and an XX division.

maria mutola was allowed to compete for many years,so why cant semenya? the two arent that different.

And here we go down the rabbit hole. The IAFF completely shot themselves in the foot by only banning women with elevated T from specific events. They made it look like they were specifically targeting her and now all women 800 runners are going to suffer.

To me, this is the same as the blade runner situation(should he be able to compete outside of Paralympics not the murder deal). All science shows she Semenya has a huge advantage and I believe she knows this. At this point, I don't believe she cares at all about the integrity of the sport because if she did she would submit to the rules proposed by IAFF. She cares about her winning and not the integrity of women's sport and I'm sick of hearing people say she has handled this with class. I think we've seen her launch a huge PR and disinformation campaign to ensure she wins the court of public opinion and manipulate the legal process due to the lack of scientific understanding of the people making the rulings.